


Tempus Fugit

by Kyele



Series: ad infinitum [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Enemies to Lovers, M/M, Season/Series 01, Time Travel, Timeline Shenanigans
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-04-29
Packaged: 2018-05-27 00:34:24
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 70,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6262273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kyele/pseuds/Kyele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Nora is dead. The Barry from the future – the Flash from the future – is gone. If Barry wants answers, if he wants to know why his future self had waved him off of saving his mother, he’s going to have to get them from a different source. </i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Fortunately, he knows exactly where – or, rather, when – his answers may be found.</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>April 25, 2024.</i>
</p>
<p>(AU from the end of Season 1.)</p>
<hr/>
<p>Also available in <a href="https://ficbook.net/readfic/6277285">Russian</a> (courtesy <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/captain_arctica/pseuds/captain_arctica">captain_arctica</a>) and Chinese (<a href="http://www.mtslash.net/thread-249140-1-1.html">mtslash.net</a>, <a href="http://0yuki-chan0.lofter.com/">lofter.com</a>) (courtesy <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/users/yingzhi_yuki/pseuds/yingzhi_yuki">yingzhi_yuki</a>)!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have fallen into this ship and can't get up. Which somehow means the need to write multichapter fic answering the question 'why did Barry's future self prevent him from saving his mother's life'. 
> 
> First chapter hews fairly close to canon and includes a number of direct quotes. That will change fairly quickly.
> 
> Russian and Chinese translations are available - check the summary for links and credits to the awesome translators! Thanks to them for their wonderful efforts!

_“Remember, Mr. Allen,” Dr. Stein says, “assuming you achieve the proper velocity and open the wormhole, you will only have 1 minute and 52 seconds to save your mother and return.”_

_“I know,” Barry says._

_“Or else – ”_

_“I_ know _,” Barry repeats._

“Clear the path!” Cisco’s voice calls, audible to both Stein and Barry over the intercom. There’s nary a hint of static. Testament to the engineering know-how of STAR Labs. Reassuring, in this moment, even despite its source.

Everything STAR Labs has ever done – every breakthrough, every new idea, every advance in the field of science – it all shares the same source. The man who had called himself Dr. Harrison Wells. Or, as Barry now knows him, Eobard Thawne. The man who had killed his mother.

Barry could comfort himself by thinking that the intercom had probably been built by subcontractors. That clear sound transmission over a distance is a well-understood problem with well-understood solutions, requiring no future technology in order to function. That there may be no trace of the man who had called himself Harrison Wells in their theory or construction.

Given that Barry is about to risk everything – push himself farther, stretch himself thinner, jeopardize the fabric of time and space itself – on the strength of Thawne’s intellect – it’s more comforting to think that static-free communication is some kind of portent of success.

“You hold both our futures in your hands now, Mr. Allen.” Stein sighs, briefly regretful. Then his expression firms into one of determination. “And I know you can do it.”

Stein holds out his hand. Barry accepts it, briefly.

“Come on, Stein, clear the path!” Cisco sounds impatient; Stein bristles, but Barry shakes his head. He can hear Cisco’s worry and panic underneath his irritation. And it’s not _all_ because, if Stein is still standing inside the particle accelerator when it comes online, he’ll be dust.

Cisco may be the one person who is taking the news of Harrison Wells’ betrayal _less_ well than Barry. And that’s quite the bar to clear.

“Go on, Doctor,” Barry tells Stein, pushing the mess currently passing for his emotions back into their box. “Get back to the control room. You can monitor me from there.”

“Good luck,” Stein says, and retreats.

Then Barry is alone. Alone, standing in the heart of the particle accelerator. Alone, waiting to start the run that will take him into the past. Alone, for the first time since he’d learned –

Since he’d learned –

_I stabbed your mother in the heart –_

“Shut up,” Barry says out loud.

“I didn’t say anything,” Eobard Thawne replies.

Barry nearly jumps out of his skin. He spins in a circle, fast, _fast_ , thinking – Thawne is supposed to be upstairs, on the roof, in his timeship, waiting for the moment Barry opens the wormhole. If he’s not there – what else is part of his plan, what else has Barry missed, how has Thawne betrayed them this time –

There’s nothing. Barry is alone, and even the intercom is quiet.

“Okay,” Barry says to himself. “Okay, get a grip.”

No one replies. Barry can’t decide if that’s a good sign or not. Either the stress is making him crazy, or –

Or nothing. Thawne is on the roof, waiting for the fulfillment of all his nefarious plans. Barry is in the heart of the particle accelerator. The thrum of machinery around him is comforting, familiar. This is STAR Labs in its purest form. Free from the malice of its creator, the technology continues on, unknowing and uncaring of the drama about to be played out in its heart.

Barry envies it.

On the floor in front of him, two strips of marking tape cross to form an X. That X represents a carefully calculated distance from the particle Stein and Thawne will be generating. So that when Cisco calls the time, when Barry starts running, pushing his hardest from the very beginning, Barry will be traveling at the right velocity when he reaches his destination. So that he collides with the particle at speed, and their reaction generates enough power to breach the space-time barrier and open the wormhole that is the key to all of their plans.

_One point twenty-one gigawatts,_ Barry thinks with an edge of hysteria, and wonders why no one has made a Back to the Future joke yet.

“Getting close,” Cisco says over the intercom. “Doing okay, Barry?”

“Fine,” Barry says. It comes out just that far side of high-pitched that gives away the lie.

“Not much longer,” Cisco says. Caitlin’s voice can be heard in the background, murmuring something indistinct. “We’re starting the countdown now.” There’s a moment of silence, then Cisco comes back on the line. Adds, “Just breathe.”

It’s good advice. Barry takes it. He focuses on the air moving in and out of his lungs. Around him, there’s a deepening rumble as the particle accelerator begins to come online. It’s not dangerous yet to be standing where Barry is standing, but it will be, soon. He’ll have to start moving before then.

The thought makes Barry tense. He forces himself to relax. He runs best when he’s calm. Limber. When he’s one with the speed force.

He relaxes, and as he does, time slows down around him.

“You’re becoming reliant on your powers,” Eobard Thawne says. “That’s good, Barry. That means you’re gaining strength.”

Barry jumps again.

“No, no, don’t tense up,” Thawne scolds. “When you do, you lose your connection to the speed force. And there’s still a few more things I need to tell you before you take your – ” A pause; a chuckle. “Your ‘leap of faith’.”

“You’re talking to me through the speed force,” Barry gasps, sick realization spreading through him. He has no proof of that, only his intuition, but his intuition has saved him before. He’s learned to rely on it.

“Quite correct,” Thawne agrees. He’s nowhere to be seen – Barry is still alone, in body – but his voice is as clear in Barry’s ear as if they were side by side.

“How?” Barry can’t help asking.

There’s a thoughtful humming sound, and Barry’s mind’s eye presents him with a perfect mental image, unbidden: Dr. Wells in his wheelchair, fingers steepled thoughtfully under his chin, eyes glinting with suppressed excitement over his glasses. Excitement, and not a little mischief, that quirk that had always made Barry feel as if Wells were sharing a private joke just with him.

The burgeoning half-smile on Barry’s face drops away. They’d had something private in common, all right. But it hadn’t been a joke, and it hadn’t been something they’d shared. It had been something that only Wells – only _Thawne_ – had known about. And if there had been genuine amusement in Wells’ eyes, if it hadn’t all been part of his front, then it had come from Wells’ enjoyment of his superior position.

His knowledge. Knowledge is power, after all. A motto so central to the man who had posed as Harrison Wells that he’d had it engraved over the door to the particle accelerator. If Barry looks up, he’d see it now.

Barry keeps his gaze on the floor. It doesn’t stop him from hearing, though, when Eobard Thawne stops humming thoughtfully and actually answers Barry’s question.

“The speed force is something all speedsters share,” Thawne says. “It’s not a separate capability that each of us has. It really is like the movies say.”

“It has a light side and a dark side and it holds the world together?” Barry quips, reaching for sarcasm as an instinctive defense.

It’s no defense at all, not really, not when Thawne speaks again in Wells’ voice, that voice that Barry has _depended_ on, that he still knows so well that he can hear the smile that must be on Wells’ face when he answers. “It holds us all together,” is what Wells says. “All speedsters share a connection to the same speed force.”

“And we can speak through it.”

“The speed force transcends space. That’s the first thing you need to know, Barry. There is no difference between the speed force where you are and the speed force where I am. There is no difference between the speed force here, in STAR Labs, and the speed force on Alpha Centauri.”

_Alpha_ – “Have you been to Alpha Centauri?” Barry asks – eagerly, too eagerly. Betraying interest. Forgetting for a moment that he’s not talking to Dr. Harrison Wells, longtime icon, but instead to Eobard Thawne, villain. Murderer.

But it’s hard when Thawne chides, “Focus, Barry,” and it’s just like any other moment before a big effort, the quiet before the storm. Wells’ voice in Barry’s ear has always been his touchstone. His center.

And maybe it makes Barry weak, that he pushes away his newfound knowledge for a moment. Forgets Wells’ duplicity, forgets his mother’s death, forgets everything, and just listens. Takes that calm certainty into himself and makes it his.

Maybe it makes Barry weak. Or maybe it just makes Barry pragmatic. He’s got to do this, and he’d be a fool to turn down any advantage he can get.

So Barry breathes, and focuses, and asks, “All right. The speed force transcends space. Why do I need to know that?”

“When you break the space-time barrier, you’ll be completely contained _within_ the speed force. You will exist outside of space. And when you leave the speed force – ”

“I can reappear in any point in space I choose,” Barry completes. “So long as I have the speed to reach it. Which is what the particle is going to give me.”

The smile is back in Wells’ voice. This time it’s proud. “That’s right.”

“And the second thing you want to tell me is that the same thing applies to time,” Barry guesses. “That I can leave in any point in time I want, as long as I have the speed. That’s how I’ll travel back to the night – ”

He cuts himself off, but the thought completes in his head. _The night of my mother’s death._

Just like that, Barry’s bubble of denial pops. The man speaking to him through the speed force isn’t Wells. It isn’t the man who’d helped Barry, mentored him, nurtured him. Whose good opinion Barry had courted, whose pride in Barry had been Barry’s joy, whose faith in Barry had been the foundation for Barry’s own belief that he could be a hero.

_Why help me save so many people?_

_Because I needed you to get fast. Fast enough to rupture the space-time barrier and create a stable wormhole through which I could return home._

Forgetfulness, it turns out, will only get Barry so far.

“You’re absolutely right,” Thawne is saying. “When you’re in the speed force, you’ll have access to all of time and space at once. The only restrictions are your speed and your focus. Speed isn’t going to be a problem. Not like last time you traveled through time.”

The last time Barry had traveled through time, he’d only gone back twenty-four hours. He hadn’t had the speed to go farther. That, too, had been part of the reason why Thawne had always been pushing Barry to go faster.

“This time you’ll have the extra boost from the hydrogen particle. Which means that all you need is focus.”

“Focus?”

“Yes, Barry. Focus. To guide your steps. You’ll need to focus on where you want to go.”

Barry knows what Thawne is going to say next. He still hopes, futilely, that he’s wrong.

“So think about that night,” Thawne says. His voice has gotten quiet. Intimate. “Think about your mother.”

_No_ , Barry wants to say. He shudders all over with the revulsion of it, hearing Thawne’s voice turn reminiscent, recounting the worst night of Barry’s life.

Maybe the second worst, now. That night had been terrible. But it had been straightforward. The good guys, the bad guys – the victory and the tragedy – it had changed Barry, shaped the man he’d become, but it hadn’t changed his past. His memories of his mother still live within him. Give him strength.

Now Barry knows betrayal. Now Barry knows it’s possible to ruin more than just the future. It’s possible for someone to reach back into Barry’s memories and taint them, turning them from a source of strength to a source of pain.

_Think about your mother –_

_Yellow streaks and red, a wind with no source, the water in Barry’s fish tank rising into the air_

_Screams_

_“Run, Barry!”_

“Good,” Wells murmurs. “Just like that. You go back in time, and you save her, Barry Allen. Undo all the evil I’ve done.”

The faith, the _pride_ – Barry feels something inside of him snap. It’s a lie, it’s all a lie, and Thawne has _no right_ to act like it’s ever been anything else –

“Don’t talk like that,” Barry shouts.

“Like what?” Damn the man, he still sounds calm –

“Like we’re _partners_ ,” Barry spits. “Like you’re – ”

“Rooting for you?” Wells pauses. “Proud of you?”

“Like you _care_.”

“Oh, Barry. I’m hurt.” Thawne ( _always Thawne, only Thawne_ ) doesn’t sound it. “Fortunately for me, I know the truth.”

“What truth?” Barry’s already shaking his head, though Eobard can’t see him; denial, instinctive and automatic.

“I’ve seen your future. This – all of this – your mother’s life, your father’s freedom – it won’t matter. You will never truly be happy.”

Barry flinches back. Covers it as a deliberate step, though Thawne can’t see – uses the momentum to get into position on the starting line. Says, “I hate you.”

Barry blanks his mind when he says it. Turns off the little mental image of Wells that his imagination’s been helpfully generating this entire time. Barry doesn’t want to be looking at the other man when he says this. Can’t, somehow, even now – even knowing the truth – _murderer, mentor_ – can’t watch, even in his imagination, the barb hit home, the light die out of piercing blue eyes.

Wells says nothing.

“I will always hate you,” Barry insists, driven to it by his enemy’s silence. By the weight of that presence in the speed force, watching, waiting, hating, _proud –_

Then the presence vanishes, and suddenly time is moving at its normal speed again.

“The accelerator’s structural integrity is holding,” Caitlin is saying.

“We’re ready to inject the particle,” Stein agrees.

“Take your mark,” Cisco calls.

Barry wastes a precious moment, staring dumbly at the intercom’s speaker as if it’s his friends’ faces.

For them, no time has passed. Barry’s entire conversation with Eobard had taken place at the speed of thought.

_Focus, Barry_ , Eobard’s voice whispers in Barry’s memory.

Barry stares down at the masking-tape X on the ground. Slowly – for him – he takes up a runner’s crouch.

The wind kicks up. Speaking over it: Caitlin, awed. “It’s opening,” she breathes.

The pressure drops. Barry feels it first as a thickness in his ears. Then as a prickling on his skin. Then, finally, in the pit of his belly. A tug, pulling him forward. Towards the heart of the collider.

Barry waits. Balance is another gift that the particle accelerator has given him. He’s light on his feet, fluid – it’s the only way to keep his footing when running at super speed. If he weren’t also super nimble, he’d fall.

So he waits, balanced in his runner’s stance. Balanced between the halt and the hurdle. The here and the there. The present and the past.

And the future?

“Now!” Cisco cries.

Time slows around Barry. He draws speed to himself. A chip of paint hangs in midair, halfway from the wall to the ground. The last syllable of Cisco’s cry still lingers in Barry’s ear.

In the suspension of the speed force, ordinary speech isn’t possible. Only a speedster can vibrate their vocal chords fast enough to form phonemes, and only another speedster can process the sounds rapidly enough to reassemble them into words.

Barry doesn’t speak. Therefore it must be Eobard who says the words he hears. The words that slice through Cisco’s last cry and Barry’s few shaky defenses to become the impetus that gears him forwards into his run, into the particle collider, into his past and his future.

“Run, Barry,” Eobard murmurs. “ _Run_.”

* * *

Iris is sitting on the couch. Eight years old. A child.

She looks up when the door opens. She smiles.

“I was waiting for you to bring Barry home,” she says, as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.

_(Is Barry okay?)_

_(Yeah. He just passed Mach Two.)_

_Think of your mother,_ Eobard calls to Barry. _Don’t get distracted, or you’ll end up who knows where._

Barry runs.

“What happened out there today?” Dr. Wells asks. Earnest. Helpful. No hint of Thawne. “You were moving pretty well, and then something caused you to lose focus.”

“I started remembering something,” Barry says. Trusting. No hint of suspicion. “When I was 11, my mother was murdered – ”

_Flattering,_ Eobard says drily, _but not exactly the memory I meant. Farther back, Barry, farther back –_

_(It’s working. It’s working!)_

_(Inject the hydrogen particle now – )_

The world, already rushing by at the edge of Barry’s vision, begins to blur past the point of recognition. The light leeches from the air.

_It’s getting dark,_ Barry says to the only person who can hear him.

“I’ll keep the light on for you,” Nora Allen says.

_It’ll get darker before it gets lighter,_ Eobard says.

“If I turn this light off now, would you be scared?” Nora asks.

_Are you scared?_ Eobard asks.

“No,” Barry replies.

_Yes_ , Barry says. He forgets, somehow, to lie.

“That’s because I’m here with you.”

_Me too,_ Eobard whispers.

“See, you’re not afraid of the dark, Barry.”

_But if you keep running –_

“You’re afraid of being alone in the dark. And that goes away when you realize something.”

_– if you stay focused –_

“You’re never really alone.”

_– you’ll find your way back to the light._

“You can turn off the light,” the child Barry says.

The particle appears in Barry’s view. A single, bright, shining focal point of light.

Barry Allen never falters.

 

_(What’s that? What happened?)_

_(Barry – he’s gone!)_

_(Look!)_

_(The wormhole – )_

_(It’s stable.)_

_(Start the clock.)_

_Run, Barry –_

* * *

Darkness. Streaks of red and yellow light. The wind rushing in his ears. Screams.

_Mom! Mom!_

_Barry! Run!_

_Nora! Hold on!_

Barry’s panting. No, he’s gasping – heaving breaths into lungs that have suddenly become too small. He presses himself against the wall of his childhood house. He struggles for breath; he struggles for clarity.

_One minute and fifty-two seconds._

He can’t let himself be seen by his childhood self. He has to wait. Wait until his future self grabs his child self, to take him away, to take him to safety. In that moment, he will be the only Barry Allen in this house. In that moment, in Barry’s timeline, the Reverse Flash kills Nora. In that moment is Barry’s opportunity.

Stop Thawne. Save Nora.

Both future speedsters will vanish, undone by the changes in the timestream. Overwritten by the people that their current versions will grow into. Barry will return to his time and continue to be the Flash. Will be the Flash in 2024. And he’ll never need to come back in time. Because the Reverse Flash who had tried to kill him, who had tried to kill Nora – he will _also_ be deleted. Replaced with the version of Eobard Thawne who is even now making his own way back to _his_ correct time of origin.

No fight. No attempted murder of Barry. No murder of Nora. Just two speedsters, born a century and a half apart, who will never meet.

_Mom!_ Barry’s younger self is screaming.

_Nora! Nora!_ Barry’s father cries.

_One minute and twenty-four seconds._

There’s a sudden blur, the crackle of lightning. Barry tenses. Is that his other two selves leaving?

He risks the look. He’ll only get one shot at this. He can’t afford to miss it.

It’s not his moment yet. His younger self and father are both in the room now, but there’s no danger of them spotting Barry; all of their attention is focused away from him. Nora is trapped in the eye of the hurricane, yelling at Barry to run, at Henry to take Barry out of there. Both of the Allen men are frozen. Staring, wild-eyed, at the two streaks of light chasing each other angrily about the room.

The two streaks are moving fast, faster than Barry has ever moved. He barely has enough of the speed force to watch them as something other than a set of blurs. Barry sees his future self takes a punch; then, a heartbeat later, the future Flash is on his feet and pressing his advantage, forcing the future Reverse into a corner. But another heartbeat later both combatants have fallen apart, circling at super speed, watching for weaknesses.

_Fifty-eight seconds._

Henry’s finally torn his gaze away from the fight and is trying to remove his Barry from the room.

“No!” the young Barry is shouting. “No, no, no – ”

The Reverse Flash’s gaze shifts to the child Barry.

Barry tenses. _Here it comes, here it comes –_

Something appears in his vision.

The Reverse Flash is wholly occupied with the sight of the child Barry, his goal, the embryonic form of his enemy. His occupation lasts only a moment. But to a speedster, a moment is long enough to take advantage of.

The Flash from the future turns his head unerringly and looks straight at Barry. The future Flash, who – according to everything Barry understands about the timeline – should have _no idea_ that there is a third Flash in the room.

But he looks right at Barry. And he shakes his head.

Barry rears back, too shocked to forget to keep his speed under control, and ends up back tucked in his corner. Not a moment too soon. A split second later there’s a streak of golden light, as his future self takes his past self out of the line of fire. And leaves the Reverse Flash alone with Barry’s mother. With all of their mothers.

This is it. This is Barry’s moment.

_Forty-three seconds._

Barry can’t see what’s going on in the room, but he can imagine it, put it together from the recounting Eobard had given him – his Eobard, the one who had posed as Wells. The Reverse Flash has dropped out of super-speed. He’s picking up the knife. He’s taking the two steps necessary to bring him looming over Nora Allen. He’s crouching down next to her and driving the knife into her heart.

It will take perhaps five seconds.

To a speedster, five seconds is an eternity.

Barry has time. All the time he needs. All the time to scream, to run, to chase, to intervene. All the time to wonder _why_.

Why had his future self told him not to interfere?

How had his future self even known a third Barry is _here_?

What does his future self know that Barry doesn’t?

_Forty-two seconds._

Barry trembles. Not with the speed force, but with the sheer intensity of his longing to fling himself around this wall. Snatch the knife from the Reverse Flash’s hands and bury it in Eobard’s lying, murdering chest. Then yank it out again and use it on his future self. That future self who has never had to live without a mother, who dares to stand in the face of everything Barry has done to get to this point – has fought for and sacrificed for and risked for – to stand in the center of that and say _no, don’t, give up, go home, let Nora die –_

But how can Barry overlook the possibility that there _is_ something his future self knows that he, Barry, doesn’t? If just getting here risked destroying the entire planet – what consequences might there be to meddling further?

_Forty-one seconds._

_I already risked everything for this moment. I’ve already agreed to delete the last fifteen years of everyone’s life. What else do I have left to wager? What else do I have to lose?_

And again: _What does my future self know that I don’t?_

_Forty seconds._

_What do I_ do _?_

_(Are you scared?_ Eobard asks. His voice is a memory from the past – from the future – from nowhere and no when at all.)

“Yes,” Barry whispers from his hiding place, voice breaking.

_(Me too_. _)_

_(But if you keep running – if you stay focused – you’ll find your way back to the light.)_

_Thirty-nine seconds._

_The light._

And suddenly Barry knows what he has to do.

_Thirty-eight seconds._

Nora Allen cries out as the knife slides between her ribs.

A red streak of light rushes past Barry and out the front door.

Barry Allen goes in and says his goodbyes to his mother.

Then he starts running.

* * *

_Thirty seconds._

Will it be long enough?

Barry doesn’t know. He has to try.

Nora is dead. The Barry from the future – the Flash from the future – is gone. If Barry wants answers, he’s going to have to get them from a different source.

Fortunately, he knows exactly where – or, rather, _when_ – his answers may be found.

_April 25, 2024._

Barry has thirty seconds. Thirty seconds in which to repeat his run, break the space-time barrier, and reach the future. Reach his future self, moments before coming back in time, and ask him _why_.

What Barry will do after that, he isn’t prepared to say. But if his future self is fast enough to travel twenty-four years backwards through time _without_ the help of a particle accelerator, Barry’s willing to bet something can be worked out.

_Twenty-nine seconds._

A young boy is crying in the street, ten blocks away. Inside an ordinary suburban home, a well-respected local doctor is trying – and failing – to save his wife’s life. Across town, Harrison Wells and Tess Morgan are about to lose their lives in a car accident that will be no accident.

Barry shuts out all those concerns. He runs. He runs, and he focuses.

There’s an image in his mind. It’s not his mother on the floor, shouting. It’s not his younger self being hustled out of the room. It’s not his father, shocked and bloody. It’s not even the man in yellow, who had haunted Barry’s dreams for so long.

It’s Barry’s future self. The Flash from the future. His gaze turned towards Barry. And his head shaking, saying: _no_.

Barry holds that image in his head as the streets move by more quickly. As the blurs at the edge of his vision begin to darken again. As he feels the fabric of time and space beginning to stretch and warp around him.

As the speed force takes Barry in, Barry holds that image in his mind and poses a single question.

_Why_?

Then the speed force swallows Barry up, carrying him forward to his answers.

* * *

Light sears Barry’s eyes. He blinks rapidly – rapidly as only he can – forcing his pupils to adjust, and his vision to focus. The source of the light is revealed to be a massive light fixture in the ceiling. A massive, _familiar_ light fixture.

“Oh my God,” Barry blurts out. “Oh my God, oh my – where am I?”

“He’s up!” Cisco cries.

Barry shoves himself to a sitting position. _No_. No, it’s can’t be. He can’t have done all of that for nothing! He wanted to go the future, not back to his own time, empty-handed, with Thawne having gotten everything he wanted and vanished beyond Barry’s reach.

But Barry is unmistakably in STAR labs. This is the cortex. This is the medical bay. This is Caitlin shining a light worriedly into his eyes, saying, “Pulse 120, pupils equally reactive to light.”

“No!” Barry shouts in frustration. He tries to bat Caitlin away, tries to stand up. Nothing is working quite right. He feels wrong in his own skin, out of control, wobbly-legged as a newborn colt. He wants to throw something. To scream. To run, as if running had ever solved everything.

Barry doesn’t even manage to make it to a sitting position. Still, his desires must be clear, because Cisco is grabbing his arms to hold him down. “Look at me, look at me. Hey, hey, whoa, whoa, relax. Everything's okay, man. You're at STAR Labs.”

“I know I’m at STAR Labs!” Barry cries. He could break Cisco’s hold – at least, usually he could; right now his muscles feel like mush – but what would be the point? Where would he go? What would he do?

“You… do?” Cisco asks. He exchanges a confused look with Caitlin.

“Did anything change?” Barry asks pleadingly. “Did it make any difference, any difference at all? Damn it, Cisco, tell me I accomplished something more than letting my mother’s murderer go free!”

“Oookay,” Cisco says slowly. “I’m going to need you to tell me how you know my name.”

“How I know your name?” Barry stares at Cisco. “Are you kidding me? That’s what I accomplished? My mom’s dead, she’s still _dead,_ and all I managed to do was erase one of the few friendships I have. That’s great. That’s really fucking great.”

“We’re not friends,” Cisco says even more slowly. He pauses. “Well. I mean, we could be. Maybe. You seem like a nice guy. But we’ve never, you know. Met.”

“At least not while you’re conscious,” Caitlin supplies.

“Shoot me now,” Barry says, heartfelt.

“That would go against my code of medical ethics,” Caitlin says apologetically.

“Do you know me?” Barry asks her. He thinks he’s keeping the hopeful tone out of his voice, but by the way she looks even more sympathetic when she shakes her head, he’s clearly not managed it.

“I’ve been taking care of you for the last nine months, but other than that – ”

“Wait. Nine months?” Barry stares at her, then at Cisco, then at Caitlin again. The length of time sparks an ugly suspicion in his mind. “Nine months. Have I been – have I been in a coma for nine months?”

“Yes! Well, sort of,” Caitlin amends when Cisco gives her a look. “It’s complicated, but, well, effectively, yes.”

“But I wasn’t sick,” Barry says. Slowly. Feeling out the theory that’s taking disturbingly probable form in the back of his mind.

Speed. It all comes down to speed. Barry’s collision with the hydrogen particle had resulted in the release of a huge burst of energy. Some of it had been captured by the particle accelerator’s capacitors, where it was to have been used to power the time-ship and take Thawne back to his time. The rest had been absorbed by Barry himself. That energy had been what had boosted Barry’s speed enough to travel back in time, when ordinarily he couldn’t muster up the speed to travel back nearly so far.

The plan had always been for Barry to expend the energy in two stages. One to return to 2000, and one to return back to the present. That is, to 2015. When Barry had changed his mind and decided to go to the future, to find his answers – he hadn’t thought about his power consumption. He’d just assumed that he had enough energy, not just to return to his own time, but to overshoot it, traveling to 2024.

But if he hadn’t –

“No,” Cisco says. “It’s – well – you were – ”

“I was struck by lightning,” Barry says numbly.

“Yes! You were!” Caitlin looks excited. “You remember that? What was it like?”

“Not the time,” Cisco murmurs.

“Right! Sorry.” Caitlin pauses for a moment. Then, as if she can’t help herself, she rushes on. “It’s just that you were in a coma for nine months, and that’s really unusual, and then there’s all the other stuff that started happening to you – ”

“Stuff that you’re not supposed to bring up immediately because he _just got out of a coma_ ,” Cisco says in what he clearly believes to be a loud whisper.

“ – but if you _could_ remember anything – ” Caitlin continues.

“Dr. Snow,” an all-too-familiar voice interrupts. “I believe we had a conversation about overwhelming the patient when he regained consciousness.”

Caitlin looks abashed. “Yes. Sorry, Dr. Wells.”

“But I’m glad to know he’s awake.” The familiar whine of an electric wheelchair meets Barry’s ears. It’s silent to everyone else, but Barry is listening for it, processing the near-immeasurable vibration of the fine bones of his inner ear at a speed that makes the whine audible.

That sound gives Barry the half-second of warning he needs not to react when Dr. Harrison Wells appears, wheelchair and all, at the entrance to the cortex.

“Welcome back, Mr. Allen,” he says. “We have a lot to discuss.”


	2. Chapter 2

They’re all too willing to show Barry a newspaper. To show him magazines, to show him websites, to repeat again and again that yes, they know it’s hard to believe, but yes, it really is October 7, 2014.

“You’ve been asleep for nine months,” Caitlin tells him, patting his arm comfortingly. “Some disorientation is to be expected.” Barry had given up the urine sample right away this time, so she’s being a lot nicer to him now than she had been the first time he’d done this.

Because that’s the only explanation Barry can come up with. That the particle _hadn’t_ given Barry enough power to jump all the way forward to 2024. That the energy Barry had taken from it had only been enough for two time-jumps: one back to 2000, and the other, forward again, to 2014. These people – this Caitlin, this Cisco, this Dr. Wells – have all mistaken him for _their_ Barry. Who is – where? That’s a puzzle Barry is going to have to solve as quickly as possible, given the potential harm to the timeline in having two Barrys running around. Certainly, the fewer people who know that there _are_ currently two Barrys the better. Barry has to get out of here. Without upsetting the apple cart. Which means playing along until he can sneak out and –

– and _what_? What can Barry do, where can he go, without giving himself away to his hovering friends or Thawne’s ubiquitous surveillance?

“I just – I still don’t quite believe it,” Barry says apologetically, when it becomes clear he’s expected to say something.

“I know it’s wild,” Cisco says. “But it’s true, I swear. You were here the whole time – well, almost the whole time.”

“I guess the hospital didn’t quite know what to do with me,” Barry says. He says it in hopes of sidestepping the whole explanation, but he’s not that lucky. Cisco and Caitlin launch into the full story of Barry-Allen-Struck-By-Lightning, with occasional commentary by Dr. Wells, Respected Physicist and Social Pariah. It’s weird to watch. Not just because of the déjà vu, but because of the way everyone is still behaving in various ways that Barry knows they’ll outgrow. He knows they’re in earnest – even Thawne – but at the same time, knowing what lies in their future, knowing who they’ll all become, Barry can’t help perceive it all as fake.

“At first we thought you’d wake up any minute,” Caitlin is saying, “but for months, nothing.”

“We kind of stopped expecting it,” Cisco says.

“I never stopped expecting it,” Dr. Wells says, voice dripping with earnest sincerity.

“Well, I did,” Cisco reaffirms. “I was going to prop you up in the corner of the lab and use you as our mascot.” He offers Barry a conspiratorial grin that Barry finds himself returning without conscious thought.

“You were not!” Caitlin cries. In spite of himself, Barry laughs. Some things, it seems, are constants.

Cisco opens his mouth to assert that he very much _was_ , and the two of them go off in a rapid back-and-forth that quickly drags in half a dozen transgressions from the last few years. Even Barry, with how well he’s gotten to know them, doesn’t recognize more than half of the incidents they lay at each other’s feet. He lets the patter wash over him, feeling himself relax a little in unconscious relief at the sense of being surrounded by his friends.

Something prickles at the back of his neck. _Not only my friends._

Dr. Wells has turned his attention to the bank of computers in the center of the cortex. He’d moved over there to pull up some online newspapers for Barry, to help prove that it’s actually been nine months. Now, taking advantage of Caitlin and Cisco’s momentary distraction, he’s fiddling with a familiar data plot – the varying speed of Barry’s heart rate during the nine months he’d been in a coma.

The fleeting sense of being safe ebbs away. Barry’s not safe. This place, with its hidden cameras and its duplicitous owner, has never been safe.

Unless…

Barry’s in STAR Labs. If Cisco and Caitlin are to be believed, Barry’s just woken up from a nine-month coma. There are a number of things that corroborate this. The most prominent of which is the fact that the man calling himself Dr. Harrison Wells is sitting not a hundred feet away from Barry, instead of either being safely locked up in the Pipeline or being gone, a hundred and fifty years into the future, back home.

_Is it possible,_ Barry asks himself, _that it was all just a dream? The last twelve months, being the Flash, time travel – could I have made it all up in my head?_

_Coma patients have weird dreams sometimes. Don’t they?_

The idea is seductive. Part of Barry feels a pang for the life unlived, the friendships unmade, but the rest of him – if it were all a dream, it would mean that everyone Barry had failed to save were alive again. It would mean that all the choices Barry regrets are his to make again.

It would mean that the man working so industriously at the terminals just outside the medical bay really is who he says he is. Genius. Physicist. Hero.

Barry’s first hero. Barry doesn’t want the man to be his last. Doesn’t want to let Barry’s capacity for hero worship be another casualty of Thawne’s monomaniacal quest to return home.

_There’s an easy way to tell._

Barry’s hands are resting in his lap. Slowly, he slides his left thumb upward, until it rests just above the thin cotton of his pants and boxers, against the bare skin of his stomach. He keeps his eyes on Cisco and Caitlin. Smiles at Cisco’s laugh, the dramatic rendition of Caitlin’s last attempt at karaoke. The pressure of Barry’s thumb against his skin is trivial, a sensation he’s known his whole life.

He tells his left thumb to _move_.

The sound of typing from the other room stops. “Mr. Allen?” Dr. Wells calls. “Are you all right in there?”

Barry stops the movement of his finger. He doesn’t respond, and after a moment, Wells – _Thawne_ – goes back to his work.

Thawne had been distracted by the sense of another speedster tapping into the speed force from close proximity. Detecting that kind of disturbance in the speed force is still difficult for Barry, but Thawne is practiced at it. It’s yet another way Thawne had kept track of Barry’s movements, his speed.

This soon after Barry has – supposedly – gotten his powers, it should be easy for Thawne to write it off as an accident. Barry is sure this isn’t the first time he’s accidentally used his super-speed during the long coma.

The skin over Barry’s new/old abs still tingles from the vibration of his finger, moving at the rate of a hundred taps per second.

_It wasn’t a dream._

_It’s all real._

The last year – it had all happened. Barry Allen is the Flash. Dr. Harrison Wells is dead; the man sitting out there is Eobard Thawne. Fifteen years ago, in Barry’s childhood home, Thawne had murdered Barry’s mother.

A year from now, Barry had gone back in time to stop him. And been stopped in his turn. Not by Thawne, not by any other villain Barry had encountered, not by accident or misadventure. By _himself_.

_(Twin blurs of scarlet and gold, chasing each other in circles around the room almost too fast for Barry to follow – both of them faster than Barry, far more experienced in harnessing the speed force – coming apart, coming together, sending blood spattering in strange shapes on the wall as they fight – )_

_(His younger self crying out, crying, “No – ”)_

_(Thawne looking away, distracted – )_

_(The scarlet speedster looking at Barry. Shaking his head.)_

_Why did he tell me not to interfere?_

“I’m fine,” Barry lies to Eobard Thawne.

_I’m not safe. This isn’t my secret lair. This isn’t even my time._

_I have to get out of here._

“Still, I think we’ve disturbed you long enough,” Wells says, turning from the computers, taking control of the situation in that effortless way Barry had used to admire. Knowing what Barry does now it’s hard to nod as meekly as the others are doing. It gets even harder a moment later when Wells continues, this time speaking directly to Barry: “I’m sure you need your rest. Why don’t you take a nap, and then Dr. Snow can run some more tests and make sure you’re fit to be up and about.”

“But,” Barry starts to protest, before cutting himself off. He doesn’t remember this. His memory may not be photographic, but waking up at STAR Labs after the particle accelerator explosion is one of the more indelible events in his life, and Barry’s fairly sure that he doesn’t go back to sleep.

Caitlin and Cisco are already filing out. “Sleep well, man,” Cisco calls over his shoulder.

“Just not too well,” Caitlin adds. “Don’t want you falling back into a coma.”

“I’m sure he’ll be fine,” Wells says. “I’ve got some more work to catch up on, so I’ll keep an eye on Mr. Allen.”

His gaze is steady on Barry, holding him in place. Barry swallows. Rapidly he reviews the last fifteen minutes in his mind. What does Thawne know? What has Barry said that might give himself away?

He’d said some things on first waking, all right. But nothing fatal. At least he doesn’t think so… he hadn’t mentioned Thawne by name, had he? Or anything to do with speed, or time travel?

He’d mentioned his mother’s murderer. Had that been enough?

Caitlin and Cisco are gone. The two speedsters stare at each other. Each, probably, trying to figure out how much the other knows.

“I’m sure this must be a great shock,” Wells begins by saying. And it’s definitely Wells speaking, using the arrogant, somewhat abrasive, but genuinely affectionate tone that the man had always employed in his Wells persona, especially when talking to Barry. After being revealed, after there had been no more need to fake it, Thawne had spoken differently. Brutally, even when he’d been being honest. Even when he’d spoken of emotions like pride and love.

Either the other speedster doesn’t know, or he’s decided to play along.

Barry tries to relax. He wouldn’t have voluntarily set himself up to cross wits with Thawne, especially not as off-balance as he is, but his options are limited until he can get out of this bed and out of view of everyone who knows him. Which he has to do without arousing too much suspicion.

_I could just run out of here right now. Thawne wouldn’t be surprised. He’d probably even lie for me to the others._

_Reckless,_ scolds a voice in his head that sounds far too much like Wells. _Sometimes, Mr. Allen, you have to slow down in order to speed up._

Barry grimaces without quite meaning to. Naturally Wells catches the expression.

“Are you in any pain?”

“Hmm? Oh, no,” Barry says hastily. “No, just – just thinking. About everything.”

“Mmm.”

“It’s quite a shock,” Barry adds, not realizing until the words leave his mouth that he’s basically parroting what Wells had just said to him. He grimaces again and braces himself.

To his surprise, Wells just laughs. “It’s all right, Mr. Allen,” he says. “I’m used to people behaving oddly around me. Now more than ever, I suppose, after the damage my particle accelerator did to the town.” The smile that had accompanied the laughter moderates itself, becoming tempered with gentle self-mockery. “I am not the easiest man to get along with. There is a reason that my biography describes me as arrogant, prickly, brusque – ”

“ – at times contemptuous,” Barry finishes slowly. “I know, I – I read it.”

The conversation is familiar. And yet it’s also wrong.

“Did you?” Wells asks, sounding oddly pleased.

_Too soon,_ Barry realizes. This is a conversation they’ll have, yes, but months from now. After they know each other better. After Barry has begun to trust Dr. Wells, to open up to the other man, to view him as a friend and companion.

Just as Thawne had intended. Thawne had manipulated Barry to gain that end. And he’d succeeded admirably. Barry had trusted Thawne. Sought his advice, relied on his strength, basked in his praise.

“Twice,” Barry offers, throat dry.

_You still do._ The voice of Barry’s conscience is sharp and accusing. _He killed your mother._

Damn it. Barry _knows_ that. But –

But while trust can be shattered quickly, habit is harder to break. Barry is _used_ to relying on Wells. And it’s showing, isn’t it? Subtly, but it’s showing.

The first time this had happened, Barry had run out of STAR Labs almost the moment he’d been back on his feet again, and no amount of social pressure or subtle persuasion had been enough to stop him. Barry had felt no tie to any of the STAR Labs crew. He can remember them trying to convince him to stay, to run more tests, to – well – to trust them. To view himself as part of their group, as they had clearly come to view him over the not-quite-nine months of his coma. Even Cisco’s mascot joke, tactless as it had been, attests to it.

The first time this had happened, Barry hadn’t reciprocated those feelings. He’d run. This time, Barry has his own year of experience to bring to the table. He’d responded to their cues, joined in their banter, navigated the unspoken flow of their interaction. When Cisco had told Barry not to get up, when Caitlin had asked for the urine sample, when Dr. Wells had ordered the others to leave and Barry to stay – Barry had folded naturally into place like he’d been doing it for months. Which, as it happens, is the truth.

And Thawne has picked up on that. _Does he suspect?_

Barry makes himself meet the other man’s eyes. He sees nothing there but a somewhat shy earnestness. Thawne’s too good an actor for Barry to read.

_He may not suspect_. Thawne will know his own instincts are out of whack when it comes to Barry. He’ll be relying on Barry’s responses to judge how much intimacy to push for and how quickly. If Barry indicates that he’s receptive, Thawne will push, plain and simple.

“Pleased to meet you, Barry Allen,” Thawne says earnestly.

“Likewise,” Barry manages.

“I know you have questions,” Wells goes on. “I’m sure you’re confused. I would be, in your place. I ask that you be patient. What happened to you is unique. Please don’t push yourself.”

“What do you want me to do?” Barry asks.

“For now? Rest.” There’s that smile again, practiced, familiar, inviting. “Tomorrow we can run some more tests. See about getting you some physical therapy. Have your family visit.”

_My family._ Oh, God. Joe and Iris. By this time, in the timeline Barry remembers, Barry’s already run off to go see them again. Do they even know that Barry’s awake yet? What has Thawne told them?

Does Barry _want_ to bring them into this mess a second time? Look at all the problems it had caused the first time around. Joe’s insistence that Iris not be told. Lying had been bad enough. The isolation had been worse. Barry had realized, last time, that being unable to tell Iris had been one of the many things that had pushed him away from his old life and deeper into the powerful orbit of Wells – of Thawne.

“If you think you’ll be up to it, that is,” Wells adds.

This time Barry could do it differently. He could tell Iris first. Joe would have to accept it then, as a _fait accompli._

Barry could go further. He could tell Eddie, too. Then Iris wouldn’t have to lie to Eddie. That had been hard on Eddie, when it had been the other way around…

_Why are you trying to patch up their relationships? Remember the goal. If you save Mom, all of this is going to get overwritten anyway. So what does it matter? You should be making decisions based on what will get you to the goal most effectively, not worrying about Eddie’s and Iris’ relationship._

Wells is still looking at Barry expectantly. Waiting for an answer.

Slowly Barry nods. “That would be… nice,” he says. _Maybe. I don’t even know anymore._

“Then I’ll leave you to get some sleep.” Wells retreats. “If you need anything – ” he waves to the cortex. “Just shout. I’ll be in in a flash.”

_I know you will,_ Barry doesn’t dare say. He just nods. And Thawne seems to accept that. With a wave of his hand, the lights in the medical lab dim.

Slowly Barry lays back down.

* * *

In his defense, Barry does _try_ to sleep. It just doesn’t work very well.

He keeps dreaming of the moment when he’d breached the time-space barrier. Flung headlong through the speed force, he’d seen and heard things for which he has no context. Some of them are memories he recognizes. Others seem like they haven’t happened yet. Not all of them feel like they belong to him.

He sees Caitlin staring at him, hatred in her eyes. Her hair is bleached white and her mouth is tight and grim.

In another moment he’s still running, running faster than he’s ever run before, but he’s not in the speed force anymore. He’s running through the streets of Central City.

Out of nowhere Cisco appears. He’s wearing a black visor. He still manages to look terrified.

Another speedster is chasing Barry. He turns, thinking it’s Thawne, thinking to talk to the other man, ask him – but the other speedster is wearing blue, and even when he removes his mask, Barry doesn’t recognize his face.

A silver helmet with yellow lightning-bolt accents flies by. Barry remembers seeing it before, on his last journey through the speed force. Then Barry had ducked and let it go by. In the dream, Barry chases it. Something will happen if he catches it; something important –

Out of the corner of his eye, Barry catches sight of a yellow streak and red lightning. He turns to better see it and feels himself seized from behind. No, not seized. Barry stares down at the length of metal piercing through his chest. Stabbed.

His chest feels funny. It’s hard to breathe. The yellow streak is gone. So is the helmet. Cisco, Caitlin, even the man in blue – gone.

Barry is alone.

He falls out of the speed force and –

* * *

The medical bay is dark. So is the cortex. The man pretending to be Harrison Wells has gone home.

Or maybe he’s gone to his secret lair. Who knows. The point is, he’s not here.

Barry considers getting up and leaving right now. A blinking red light, easily noticeable in the dimness, dissuades Barry from that notion. The camera Barry can see isn’t one of the ones Thawne had been using to keep an eye on Barry. It’s just an ordinary security camera, and Barry could run out of here fast enough that it wouldn’t even see him. Thirty frames per second is too slow to catch a speedster. But it reminds Barry that there are better cameras hidden here. Thawne’s future tech doesn’t rely on the frame-by-frame methods of 21st-century audiovisual recording. _Those_ cameras can film a speedster just fine. At least, if there _is_ a trick to speeding around them, Thawne had never felt the need to share it.

If Barry uses his speed to leave, Thawne will know. Barry shouldn’t have that much control. Not yet. It will reveal more than Barry is ready to reveal.

If Barry _doesn’t_ use his speed to leave, Thawne will probably catch him before he gets out the door.

The first time around, Thawne had let Barry go – but the first time around, Barry had left in the middle of the day. There had been witnesses in the form of Caitlin and Cisco. In the dead of night there’s nothing to stop Thawne from putting Barry back in bed by force, and then convincing everyone that Barry had been having a ‘coma episode’.

Besides. If Barry stops to think about it, he’s not quite sure he knows where he’d go, if he left. He doesn’t have a home to go to anymore. Not in 2014. He doesn’t belong here, any more than Thawne does.

He has to get out. But where will he go?

The obvious answer is: _to the future_. Just as Barry had intended when he’d left 2000. Go to 2024, find his future self, and ask him _why_ he’d told Barry not to save Nora. Then, when Barry had figured out a way around whatever objections his future self had had – save Nora anyway.

Barry knows the trick to traveling through time. Thawne had taught it to him, obligingly. Run fast enough and – presto.

Except.

Speed is the key. Speed is always the key. Run fast enough, and you break the time-space barrier. But all that does is take you outside of your own timestream. The time travel part is still up to the speedster.

When Barry had done it on his own, accidentally, he’d only had enough speed going to take him back a single day. Twenty-four precious hours. At the end of a year, he still hadn’t gained enough speed to travel independently back fifteen years to stop his mother’s murder. Cisco’s best estimate had been that Barry could move around a week, max, in time. That had been why Barry had needed Thawne’s help. That had been why they’d gone through the entire rigmarole with the particle accelerator one last time. Only by colliding with the hydrogen particle and stealing _its_ energy had Barry gained the speed necessary to travel back fifteen years.

Barry doesn’t need to go quite so fast this time – just nine years. Into the future instead of the past, though he doubts that matters. Ah, but then, after getting his answers, Barry will need to travel back again – from 2024 to 2000 – a jump of twenty-four years. Add in returning to 2015, after saving Nora, and Barry is looking at three time jumps totaling forty-eight years. Last time Barry had only made it a total of twenty-nine years. Not even quite enough to make it all the way back to Barry’s own time.

Had that been deliberate on Thawne’s part? One final middle finger to the Flash? Or just a case of variance in the equation breaking against Barry’s favor? Thawne had been open about particle energy transfer for the purposes of time travel not being an exact science. Or at least, he’d claimed to be. Stein hadn’t called him a liar, at least…

Regardless. The bottom line is: Barry needs _more_ energy than last time. Not less.

Last time, Barry had only gotten the energy needed to travel years back through time by relying on the particle accelerator. Those events are still twelve months away, from where Barry is currently sitting in 2014.

Twelve months. Fifty-two time-hops, at Barry’s current speed.

Barry shakes his head. The first and only time he’d time-traveled solely on his own power, he’d arrived exhausted. He won’t be able to make fifty-two consecutive time jumps. He’ll have to wait in between each of them, recharging his strength. Potentially altering the timeline even more with every stop.

Thawne hadn’t been the only one to warn Barry about the dangers of alterations to the time-stream, though he’d been the most eloquent. _Time is an extremely fragile construct,_ he’d said. And Dr. Stein had corroborated _that_.

But what’s Barry’s alternative? Stay here? Kidnap the Barry from this time, lock him in a closet – assuming he still exists, assuming Barry’s careless actions haven’t already deleted him – and then what? Take the run instead? Take the particle’s power and repeat the whole mess?

Where _is_ the Barry from this timeline?

Barry’s already changed time, just by being the one to wake up in STAR Labs instead of the Barry who’s supposed to be here. As much as he wants answers from his future self, as much as he wants to save his mother from Thawne, Barry’s first priority has to be correcting the timeline in the here and now.

It’s entirely possible he’s already messed up the timeline so badly that there _is_ no other Barry anymore.

He has to find out. If there _is_ another Barry, then he has to find his other self and send him to STAR Labs, with all the information he needs to pretend the last twenty-four hours had happened to him. Problem solved.

If there isn’t – well, Barry will jump off that bridge when he gets to it.

Tomorrow Barry has to leave. He’ll be polite but firm. He’ll say he needs time to think. If he waits until some of the others are around – Cisco and Caitlin, or better yet, Iris and Joe, outsiders who are less under Thawne’s sway – Thawne will have to let Barry go. There’s still the small matter of Thawne’s surveillance, but this time Barry knows where the cameras are. Thawne doesn’t have all of Central City wired. Barry can play-act long enough to get away from Thawne’s oversight. Then he can act for real.

That decided, Barry settles back down. He may not get back to sleep easily, but he’s going to need all the rest he can get.

* * *

Barry’s plan goes off the rails almost immediately. Barry is woken up by Joe and Iris coming to visit him, which should be the perfect opening for him to make his escape. But Barry’s attempts at leaving are rebuffed by the united front of his foster family.

“You just woke up from a nine-month coma!” Iris cries when Barry first makes noises about coming home.

“I’m just kinda sore. Honestly, that’s it,” Barry tries to reassure her.

“Barry, I know you’re smart, but you’re not a doctor,” Joe steps in. “I’d rather hear that there’s no lasting effects from a professional. No offense.” He’s using Barry has always privately termed his Reasonable Voice – as in, _I’m being reasonable, and any disagreement is therefore irrational._ Barry hates the Reasonable Voice.

“Caitlin, tell him there’s no lasting effects,” Barry appeals. She and Dr. Wells are hovering off to the side, not interrupting but most definitely present. Only Cisco, of the usual team, is absent this morning. When Barry had asked, Wells had looked cagey and said only that Cisco had been working on some tech. Which doesn’t exactly narrow it down.

At Barry’s appeal, Caitlin looks torn, but shakes her head. “I need to run more tests,” she says apologetically.

_Do_ you _need to, or does_ Thawne _need you to?_ Barry wonders snappishly, having seen the look Caitlin had darted at Wells before speaking.

But: “More tests sounds good to me,” Iris says.

“Traitor,” Barry grumps.

“Besides, who’s going to take care of you if you go home?” Joe says. “I don’t like the thought of you trying to recover from this alone.”

This takes Barry aback, and he opens his mouth to say something like _But I won’t be alone. You’ll be there, and Iris and Eddie are around all the time anyway –_

Reason and sense catch up and Barry closes his mouth again, slowly. None of that is true. Iris and Eddie will have started dating by now – Barry hasn’t missed the way Iris’ cell phone has buzzed several times in her brief visit so far, nor the quick glances and the even quicker smiles that glancing at the screen has provoked. But they haven’t moved in together. Iris still lives at home. And Barry still lives in his little studio walkup downtown, whence he’d moved, after college, out of a now-regrettable desire to _have his own space_.

Still, that doesn’t mean Barry’s a stranger to the West household. “What if I came back home – uh, to your place – for a few days?” Barry asks instead, shamelessly playing to Joe’s paternal instincts. “You and Iris can look after me. Caitlin can visit. Cisco too,” he adds, looking to Caitlin to make sure she’ll convey the invitation. But turning his head gives Barry a glimpse of Thawne’s raised eyebrow out of the corner of his eye, and Barry flushes in mixed embarrassment and a suddenly heightened sense of danger. Much as he’d like to exclude the man, it wouldn’t do to raise his suspicions any farther than necessary.

“A – and Dr. Wells, if, uh, if he likes,” Barry hastily adds. Oh, for God’s sake, Barry sounds like an idiot. Well, maybe that will help. Let them all think that Barry’s odd behavior towards Thawne is down to hero worship, and that Barry is just too modest to assume that the great and powerful Dr. Wells would have time for little old him. Better than them knowing the truth, anyway.

“That’s a great idea,” Iris says brightly. “Right, Dad?”

“Well, since no one’s rented your old bedroom out yet…” Joe relents.

“Then I’ll just – ” Barry reaches for his sneakers.

“Oh no,” Joe says, snatching them out of his reach. Barry resists the childish urge to snatch them _back_ in a blur of lightning. “Medical discharge first, _then_ home.”

“This isn’t a hospital!” Barry cries.

“Barry, the actual hospital had no idea what to do with you.” Joe sets Barry’s sneakers back down firmly and straightens, meeting Barry’s eyes. The Reasonable Voice is back in full effect. “You were dying. Your heart kept stopping, no one had any idea why – they’d bring you back and you’d crash again.”

“It was terrifying,” Iris says. Her voice sounds normal, but Barry sees the sudden shadow pass over her face and feels an unwilling pang of sympathy.

Joe goes on, gesturing to punctuate his points. “Dr. Wells said he had an idea of what had happened to you. Now, I don’t understand everything he said to me, but I understand that you’re sitting right here, awake and being stubborn with me, which is a hell of a lot more than the hospital was willing to hope for. So when I say _medical discharge_ , I mean that I’m going to be taking these people’s opinions very seriously, all right?”

Barry deflates. _Great. Just great. So much for hoping that they’d_ help.

_Why_ had Barry thought Joe would be on his side? _Because Joe’s always been suspicious of Wells and Wells’ influence over me_. Except, apparently, not always. Barry had forgotten: _Joe_ had been the one to release Barry from the hospital and into Wells’ care in the first place. Later Joe will say that he’d suspected Wells even then. But obviously not enough to prevent him from entrusting Wells with Barry’s life.

“Look, I know you’d rather sleep it off at home,” Joe says conciliatorily. “But I think we would _all_ feel better if you let them run a few more tests.”

Barry had just been assuming that Joe would be every bit as eager to detach Barry from Wells as Barry is to _be_ detached. _How many times am I going to make the same mistake?_ Barry had assumed Joe would be eager because, twelve months from now, that would have been true. After all, Joe had been the first to become suspicious of Wells. The first to begin recruiting others for his little ‘investigate Wells’ fan club. He _should_ have been the first to have Barry’s back, when Barry had indicated that he would prefer to be under Joe’s roof than Wells’.

_Too soon._ Apparently even Joe had had a period when he’d trusted Dr. Wells. As Barry would have realized if he’d been thinking straight. Instincts or no instincts, Joe had made the decision to trust Wells with Barry’s life, and Wells has repaid that trust handsomely. _This time._

Barry can’t rely on Joe’s help without first reawakening Joe’s suspicions of Wells. Which he certainly can’t do here and now. Which means Barry’s stuck.

“I agree with Dad,” Iris is saying. “Come on, Barry, please? For us?”

“Just a few test,” Wells offers. “Barring any unforeseen results, I’m sure you’ll be relaxing at home by this evening.”

At his side, Caitlin nods in agreement.

“See?” Joe says, as if that settles it. “Just until this evening.”

“But,” Barry says helplessly. He’d been prepared to stand up to Wells, Cisco and Caitlin, but Joe and Iris are another matter.

Iris’ phone buzzes again. She checks the screen. “Oh!”

“What is it?” Barry asks with what he thinks is understandable wariness. The looks several other people give him say otherwise. They’re not used to the need for vigilance yet.

“Work. I have to go,” Iris says. She looks up from her phone, still bubbling over with happy earnestness. “Barry, please will you stay? Just for today. And then if nothing’s wrong I’ll see you tonight, okay?”

Iris turns the full force of her smile on Barry. He wavers.

_Eddie,_ Barry reminds himself. _She’s with Eddie. You missed your chance. At least for now._

But their bond is more than just Barry’s one-sided crush. The big sister effect is still in full force, and Barry sighs.

“All right,” he says, against his better judgment. Surely he can fake his way through one day’s worth of tests without giving himself away to Thawne, or messing up the timeline _too_ badly.

“Good man,” Joe says, clapping him on the shoulder. “I’d better go too. I’ll just be in the way, and I’m probably needed down at the station. Barry, if you call me when you’re done, I’ll come pick you up.”

“Okay,” Barry says in resignation.

“Bye!” Iris chirps, coming in to kiss Barry’s cheek. Barry instinctively braces himself for the zing of electricity that her touch always gives him.

It doesn’t come.

Barry stares at her as she and Joe leave, barely even hearing the Wests exchanging goodbyes and cautions with the rest of Team STAR Labs.

A mangled timeline. A missing Barry Allen. And now – no lightning.

Barry’s in trouble.

“Okay,” Dr. Wells says cheerfully, turning back to Barry. “Let’s get started.”


	3. Chapter 3

Barry goes through the motions of the tests numbly. He doesn’t know what to expect. Last time around, he’d discovered his speed by accident, after leaving STAR Labs behind. This is new ground for him, too.

It doesn’t matter. Thawne has planned this to perfection. When Barry’s reflex evaluations come back twelve standard deviations above average, he segues neatly into a series of tests that just so happen to ‘discover’ all the major elements of Barry’s new powers.

“I can’t believe this,” Cisco says in amazement, watching as Barry dutifully catches a coffee cup before it hits the ground, never mind that he’d been standing on the other side of the room when he’d dropped it.

“Me neither,” Caitlin agrees, exclaiming over the readouts from Barry’s run on the conveniently souped-up treadmill.

“Yeah, uh, wow,” Barry says dutifully. He avoids Thawne’s eyes and tries not to flush.

“Bored, Mr. Allen?” Wells’ huff of wry amusement is audible. He spins himself around from where he’d been hunched over the computers, reviewing Barry’s hundred-meter-dash times. “In that case, what do you say we try something a little more… fun?”

Cisco and Caitlin both squeal. Barry’s stomach clenches with dread.

_Played right into that one._

“What do you have in mind?” he asks warily.

“Field trip?” Cisco asks, nearly bouncing in excitement.

Wells’ smile is wide and seemingly genuine. Barry’s stomach clenches further.

“Field trip,” Wells says.

* * *

The old STAR Labs proving grounds look exactly the way Barry remembers them. Dr. Wells parks the mobile test van expertly, and in less time than Barry would have believed, given that no one is using superspeed, they’re ready to roll for test number one. Barry goes in to the van and changes into the ridiculous outfit Cisco has brought.

“You don't really believe he can run that fast, do you?” Barry can hear Cisco say through the half-cracked window.

Even after all this time, Barry remembers Wells’ response. _Well, I believe anything is possible, and in a few minutes, maybe you will too._

Barry interrupts, coming out of the van a few seconds early. “I feel like an idiot,” he announces. He’s really, really tempted to just tell Cisco to go ahead and get out the supersuit Barry _knows_ Cisco has been working on in his spare time. Only the creeping dread Barry can’t shake that comes from knowing how badly the timeline’s already messed up stops him.

“You’ll be moving so fast no one will see you,” Cisco reassures him, right on cue.

Barry tunes out the rest of the pre-run banter and focuses on counting his breaths. He remembers how this goes. He has to flub these tests. He has to keep his speed down and his reactions as natural as possible, even though all he wants to do is run fast enough to get out of here. Back to his own time, or better yet, to the future –

 _Think of the timeline,_ he tells himself. _Remember what Dr. Stein said. All of time and space could implode._

“Mr. Allen,” Wells says, “while I am extremely eager to determine your full range of abilities, I do caution restraint.”

“I’ll try,” Barry promises.

“Go!” Cisco yells.

Barry _does_ try. He really does. He remembers doing this. Remembers the rush. Remembers the loss of control. He knows he’s supposed to overdo it, supposed to run headlong into the sandbags Cisco has piled up at the end of the disused runway. He _knows_ it. But Barry’s got a year’s worth of instincts honed in a brutal series of life-or-death encounters, and he realizes too late that what he _doesn’t_ have is a handle on those instincts.

He reaches the end of the runway, uses the piled sandbags as a platform to leap into the air and flip himself around, and lands in a balanced stance ready to punch the nonexistent metahuman who is not actually chasing him.

 _Shit_.

“Did you see that?” Caitlin is screeching, loud enough to be heard even over the distance.

“That was awesome! Fucking – awesome!” Cisco shouts. That one doubles itself through the earbud they’ve given Barry, and he can’t suppress a wince.

Dr. Wells alone doesn’t look overwhelmed. “Very good,” is all he says aloud. His look – appraising, thoughtful – says volumes more. “Very impressive, Barry. Good control.”

“Thank you,” Barry says as innocently as he can. His mental processes are more or less a constant loop of _shitshitshit._

“Would you mind trying it again?” Wells asks. He holds up the kind of speed gun that the cops use to catch people speeding in actual cars. “I’d like to try and clock you.”

“Sure,” Barry repeats. He doesn’t succeed in keeping all the dread out of his voice, but no one else seems to take it for what it is.

 _Slow_ , Barry tells himself as he takes off running. _Slow, slow –_

“Four hundred knots!” Cisco cries.

Barry skids to a halt, an ominous feeling making itself known in the pit of his stomach. Then he yelps. He’s forgotten he’s not wearing his suit: his sneakers are on fire. He takes them off hurriedly and throws them clear. There’s a sudden warmth on his back, too. He goes to stop drop and roll, but Caitlin’s already smothering him in a fire blanket.

“Be prepared,” she says with obviously forced cheer.

“Thanks,” Barry says ruefully.

“Well, well, Mr. Allen,” Dr. Wells murmurs. “You are _full_ of surprises.”

“I, uh.” Barry clears his throat. “I guess this means I can go home now. Right?”

They make him wait while they go through the data one more time, but finally even Wells seems to run out of excuses to keep Barry with them.

“You are in peak physical shape as far as I can tell,” Caitlin says. She shakes her head in astonishment. “In fact, I think you’re in better shape now than you were _before_ the accident.”

“Lightning gave you abs,” Cisco says mournfully.

“Your mind is far more valuable than the shape of your stomach, Cisco,” Dr. Wells says calmly. “Barry, that was amazing. How do you feel?”

“I feel great,” Barry says shortly. “I’ll feel better when I go home. I – whoa.” He sways, suddenly light-headed.

Cisco and Caitlin grab him and help him to the chair Cisco has just leaped out of. “What is it?” Cisco demands, worried.

Caitlin is already pricking Barry’s finger. “Glucose level is 35 mg/dL,” she announces.

“Is that one of those things you use for diabetes monitoring?” Cisco asks.

“It’s portable and accurate,” Caitlin says with a shrug. “Also it’s fast. Barry, your blood sugar is dangerously low.”

“Running that fast must have burned a lot of calories,” Barry says weakly, cursing himself for not having realized he’d need to load up before these tests. “I’ll be fine once I get something to eat. I can stop by somewhere on the way home – ”

“Nonsense, Barry, I can’t let you alone in this state,” Dr. Wells says briskly. “We can _all_ go get something to eat. I confess to being a tad peckish myself.” He holds up a hand to cut off Barry’s interruption. “My treat. And then we can drop you home.” He drops his hand and gives Barry his most patient look. The one that never fails to make Barry feel like a child. “Unless you were planning to run all twenty-five miles back to Central City yourself?”

Barry sighs. He could remind Wells that Joe had offered to come pick Barry up, but it would just be a waste of breath. Thawne wants Barry close. _Obsessive bastard._

There’s only so many times Barry will get to say _no_ to his nemesis. Spending one of them to get out of grabbing dinner – when Caitlin and Cisco will be there to buffer them – would be foolish in the extreme.

 _Discretion is the better part of valor and all that,_ Barry tells himself. He manufactures a shy, pleased smile and puts it on. “All right, I’ll come.”

* * *

They pack up the mobile lab – or, well, Caitlin and Cisco do; Barry is handed two protein bars and ordered to _stay put_ , and Dr. Wells goes back to fiddling with the data while the other two work. Cisco is already muttering about enhanced nutritional supplements. Then they all drive together to the nearest Big Belly Burger.

“I swear you own stock in this place or something,” Cisco says to Dr. Wells, who shrugs.

“I like what I like,” he replies. “I’m a simple man.”

Barry has to cover a snort with a fit of coughing. Caitlin frowns worriedly at him, and when the cashier asks if Barry would like to upsize his meal, Caitlin says “Yes,” before Barry can even open his mouth.

 _So much for being the fastest man alive,_ he thinks wryly. But the rumble coming from his stomach agrees with Caitlin. “I’ll have a shake too,” he adds.

“Good idea,” Dr. Wells approves. Barry finds himself smiling, responding to the praise, before he catches himself doing it and turns away abruptly under the pretense of needing more ketchup.

The conversation over the food revolves in equal parts about the dizzying possibilities afforded by Barry’s hypothetical powers (well, hypothetical to half of the table, anyway) and about Barry himself. Barry has to exert himself to stay involved, reminding himself that the Cisco and Caitlin of 2014 don’t know much of anything about Barry that wouldn’t be found in his medical records or shared in Iris’ or Joe’s sickbed visits.

Barry’s thoughts keep reverting to the mess he’s in. For once, Cisco and Caitlin’s excitement isn’t infectious. If anything, it grates. They’re so innocent. They see Barry’s powers as a gift. As a blessing. And all the while Thawne sits between them, directing their banter in the right direction, nudging them forward, his conversational touch so deft that even Barry sometimes has trouble picking it out.

“Imagine if he could run fast enough to run on water!” Cisco suggests.

“With the right speed, it should be possible,” Wells says thoughtfully, selecting a french fry. “We can run some models.”

“What about air?” Caitlin exclaims, keeping her voice down at the last minute when Dr. Wells gives her a gently chiding look. “Barry could _fly_!”

“I don’t think that will work,” Barry tries. The calculating glint is back in Thawne’s eyes. Barry hates it.

“But if you ran fast enough – ”

“I can’t fly,” Barry repeats, more snappishly than he intends. He repents as soon as he sees Caitlin’s face fall. “It’s, uh, because air isn’t dense enough, it doesn’t matter how fast I go.”

“Of course,” Caitlin says, trying to laugh. “I knew that.”

“She knew that,” Cisco agrees, giving Barry a slightly dirty look.

 _Great_. Barry slides a glance to Thawne, only to be met by the light glinting off the glasses he’s wearing, a sure sign of displeasure. _Just great_.

“But the other ideas sounded great,” Barry adds, trying to save the situation. “About water? I – I could maybe do that.”

“Maybe,” Caitlin says. She’s talking to her burger.

The conversation never quite recovers from that, and they leave shortly after. Dr. Wells drops Cisco and Caitlin off first. Of course.

“Which way, Barry?” Dr. Wells asks genially, seemingly unaffected by the subdued atmosphere that had reigned in the van until a moment ago, when Cisco had hopped out.

 _You know perfectly well where,_ Barry doesn’t say. He gives directions instead. For the first few minutes there’s no sound but the soft jazz playing over the radio, the _whoosh_ of faster vehicles passing their relatively slow van. Barry counts the cars going by and waits for Thawne to speak.

“Please forgive Caitlin and Cisco,” Dr. Wells says eventually. “They were just excited. I don’t think they realize how overwhelming this is for you.”

“And you do?”

Barry glances sideways, more to confirm his expectations than because he doesn’t know what Dr. Wells’ expression will be. And indeed, it’s all as Barry imagines: the furrowed brow, the gentle smile, the sad slump of his shoulders.

“I know a little something about having my world turned upside down,” is how Wells chooses to answer, and Barry has to smile, faintly, in appreciation of Thawne’s choice of words.

“To find yourself suddenly out of place, cut off from who and what you’d been before…” Barry agrees, testing out his own ability to play the game.

A wry twist of Wells’ lips is his answer. “Just so.”

Barry sighs. “I shouldn’t have snapped. I regret that. I know they were trying to help.”

“Why don’t you come by STAR Labs tomorrow and apologize?” Wells suggests.

“Trying to keep me close?” Barry frames it as a joke, though he’s deadly serious. “Haven’t you had enough of me, after all this time?”

The sharp tilt of the head is pure Thawne. “Just the opposite,” he says. “Having you around – even if our involvement was one-sided – it’s created… something of a bond.” The faint smile again, the retreat back to the Wells persona. “I hope you don’t find that too off-putting.”

“On the contrary,” Barry says.

The van pulls up outside of the West residence. “Here’s your stop,” Wells says. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Count on it,” Barry says.

* * *

Barry’s back the next morning, all right. Bright and early. He knows what’s going to happen today, and he wants to be ready when it does.

Sure enough, he’s barely had time to offer his heartfelt apologies (and the to-go cups of coffee he’d brought along, courtesy of Jitters) when there’s a ping from the cortex computers.

“Hey, that’s weird,” Cisco says.

“What is?” Barry asks, trying to sound interested.

“Oh, it’s just – I’ve been playing around with an improved weather detection algorithm. You know, something like in _Back To The Future, Part II_? Where Doc Brown says to wait five more seconds and the rain will stop?”

“Yeah,” Barry says, trying to project enthusiasm. It’s not hard; he’s actually pretty tickled that someone’s finally made a BTTF reference, though ironically it’s not to time travel.

“There’s a lot of STAR Labs satellites still in orbit that aren’t really being used for their original purpose anymore,” Cisco goes on. “I was trying to find something useful to do with them.” He shrugs self-deprecatingly, fingers still busy on the keyboard. “It was Dr. Wells’ idea, actually.”

 _Now why am I not surprised,_ Barry thinks ruefully. Thawne knows to expect the Weather Wizard, too. But out loud Barry only says: “Nice. So, uh, what was that alarm?”

“Check _this_ out.” Cisco points at the screen. “Atmospheric pressure just dropped 20 millibars. In a matter of seconds!”

“So that’s not normal?”

“Not at all,” Dr. Wells says from behind them.

Barry steps to one side automatically so that Dr. Wells can park his wheelchair next to Cisco and reach for the other open terminal. Wells gives Barry an appreciative nod as he takes advantage of the open space, and Barry has to fight not to react beyond a somewhat awkward smile. _Keep it together, Barry. You’re not used to this, remember?_

“What could cause such a large and sudden drop?” Caitlin asks. She’s emerged from the lab behind Wells, too.

“I have no idea,” Cisco says. “But it’s cool.”

Barry knows. “I could go check it out,” he offers.

“It’s moving really fast,” Cisco says doubtfully.

“Wind speeds just hit 200 miles an hour,” Wells agrees.

“I can run that fast,” Barry reminds them, trying to hit the right note of self-deprecation.

“Not without setting your clothes on fire again,” Wells says, saving Barry the trouble of working up to it.

“Aha,” Cisco says, pushing back from his seat. “Now _that_ I can fix.”

* * *

The situation with Marsdon is resolved much more easily this time. Barry’s had no involvement with the police investigation into the robberies, which means no one has tipped Joe and Eddie off about the Marsdon connection and sent them out to the farm where Marsdon is hiding out. Without the need to protect Joe and Eddie – or to hide his abilities – Barry has Marsdon in custody in short order. He drops Marsdon off at the police station, along with a stack of Marsdon’s ill-gotten hundred-dollar bills. More than enough for Joe and Eddie to put two and two together and put Marsdon away for robbery.

“You were amazing,” Caitlin enthuses, back at the cortex.

“How did my suit hold up? Did she do well?” Cisco is asking, running his fingers over its fabric. Which, since Barry is still wearing it, is more than a little awkward. Barry clears his throat.

“Cisco, let Mr. Allen change first, please,” Dr. Wells says, amusement clear in his voice. “Caitlin, why don’t you check Barry over? Make sure there are no ill effects?”

“I feel fine,” Barry says hastily, handing his suit over to Cisco and tugging his street clothes the rest of the way back into place. He doesn't even bother with his hair. Luckily the windblown look seems to suit him.

“Whoa,” Cisco says appreciatively. “Nice.” He looks up to see both Barry and Dr. Wells giving him identical looks of amusement and reddens slightly. “I’ll just go look at the suit. Make sure it’s okay. You know.” He beats a hasty retreat.

“Caitlin?” Dr. Wells prompts, ignoring what Barry had said about being fine.

“I’ll get my bag,” she says.

Barry doesn’t move to follow her. The ploy is somewhat transparent, but it’s to his advantage to let Wells continue to believe he has the upper hand.

“You did very well out there today, Mr. Allen,” Wells says when Caitlin is out of earshot. “Very well indeed.”

“Thank you,” Barry says calmly.

“Did anyone see you?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Dr. Wells hums thoughtfully. “And are you planning to tell anyone?” When Barry doesn’t respond, he presses. “Your foster family, perhaps?”

“No. I’m – no.”

Barry had lost a lot of sleep last night wrestling with this one. It’s a departure from last time, and Barry’s not ignorant of the risks that poses. But he’s changed things already, just by accident, by following his own instincts instead of remembering to act like his 2014 self. And, frankly? Barry doesn’t _remember_ everything about the last twelve months. The major happenings, sure – though even then, there are details that escape Barry. But the day-to-day stuff? Every conversation, every choice? Barry has no chance of recreating the exact same timeline as the first time around.

Besides. Barry’s ultimate goal is to rewrite this reality anyway. Viewed from that perspective, it doesn’t matter if he changes things. In fact, any change that facilitates saving his mother’s life is for the greater good.

And to that end, keeping Joe out of the loop is an obvious choice to make. Joe had been the main driver of the effort to unmask Harrison Wells as the Reverse Flash. That had been beneficial the first time around. But Barry needs Eobard now. Needs Eobard for the same reason that Eobard needs him.

Time travel. Which requires a connection to the speed force, and a high enough velocity. Barry as one. Eobard has the other.

“No,” Barry repeats, more firmly. “I think I need to keep this to myself for now.”

Dr. Wells nods slowly, accepting this. “That’s your choice, of course.”

Barry tilts his head. “You disapprove?” That’s surprising. He would have thought Thawne would be glad to keep the circle of those in the know as small as possible, and restricted to those Thawne already feels sure he controls – Cisco, Caitlin, Barry.

Wells – Thawne – shrugs slightly. “I won’t deny that I believe selective secrecy to be in your best interests,” he says. “But there are more dangers than merely unwanted interference in your affairs. Take it from someone who knows, Barry. Being isolated carries its own risks.”

“Well,” Barry says carefully, “I’ll think about it, but – ”

“But your mind is made up,” Wells completes. He laughs a little. “I was young once. I remember being stubborn.”

“Something tells me you’re still stubborn."

“Mmm.” Thawne grins, appreciative. Of what? Being understood? The light is glinting off his glasses again. “Maybe.”

Caitlin reenters then, and the conversation dies. She looks Barry over and pronounces him unaffected by the rigors of the day.

“Though you need to make sure you eat plenty,” she says. “Here – Cisco whipped these up. High-density protein bars.” She makes a face at the wrapped slabs she’s passing to Barry. “I don’t think they taste that great,” she adds, “but Cisco insisted I tell you that they’re blueberry-flavored. I hope you like blueberries.”

“I do,” Barry promises. Besides, with how fast he eats the bars, he barely even tastes them. Though – “When did Cisco even have time to make these? We just talked about them last night!”

“He likes to get in early,” Caitlin says with a shrug. “And I think Dr. Wells helped.”

“Only a little,” Wells says modestly.

“Well, thank you,” Barry says. _Of course you did. You need them too, don’t you._ “And tell Cisco I said thanks, too.”

“You’re not staying?”

“I have to run by my apartment, pick up some clothes and stuff, since I’m staying with Joe for a few more days,” Barry improvises.

“I hope that _run_ is figurative, Mr. Allen,” Dr. Wells says sternly. “Until we know the full extent of your capabilities, prudence would be advisable.”

“Don’t over-exert yourself,” Caitlin translates.

“I won’t,” Barry promises.

“I’ll walk you out,” Dr. Wells says, sharing a droll look with Caitlin at the figure of speech as he spins his wheelchair around. “I want to show you the alarm panels. I’ve already added you to the security system, but we’ll need to set your palm print and – a few other things.”

“See you later, Barry!” Caitlin calls. Barry waves in reply.

Barry and Wells make their way through STAR Labs, Wells pointing out all of the appropriate security features and Barry nodding like he doesn’t already know them. Wells demonstrates how to activate and deactivate the system. Barry sets his palm against the glass and wonders what Gideon is making of this.

“Well, that should do it,” Dr. Wells says at last. “You can come and go as you please now. You’ll have full access to STAR Labs, any time.” Wells gives Barry his most earnest look. “I hope you will think of STAR Labs as a place you can feel safe, Mr. Allen. As a place you can be yourself.”

“A place I can be myself,” Barry repeats thoughtfully. “I – thank you, Dr. Wells.”

Wells nods, but doesn’t reply aloud. Barry waits a moment. Then he shrugs and turns to go.

“Can I ask you another question?”

Barry turns back gamely. “Sure, what is it?”

“How did it feel?” When Barry frowns, confused, Wells clarifies. “Using your abilities.”

“Good. Fine,” Barry says. “I – fine.”

Wells’ chair comes around in a smooth circle, bringing them face-to-face. “Care to be more specific?”

Barry looks up and catches the other man’s gaze. A dismissive response dies on his lips. It’s not Wells looking at him, asking the question with the dispassionate curiosity of the scientist studying a new and unique subject. It’s Thawne, and in the brief second before the mask settles back into place, Barry glimpses the fathomless hunger of a speedster denied the use of the speed force.

“It felt – electric,” Barry says haltingly. He’s not sure how to describe it, he’s never been good at – but if anyone would understand anyway, it would be someone who’s experienced it before, it would be another speedster. “Everything around me was part of it. The air, the ground – pushing me forward. And when the air became charged, because Marsdon was making the storm, that was part of it, too. The lightning. It was like – ” Barry closes his eyes, reaches for the memory. “ – like being struck by lightning again, except the lightning wasn’t hurting me. It couldn’t hurt me. It was part of me too. It was giving me power. I _was_ the lightning.”

Barry’s mouth runs dry; he stops talking, licks his lips. Dares to look back at Thawne.

Thawne’s gaze is unfocused, staring past Barry at something only he can see. The hunger is back on his face. And so is something else. Something darker.

Something that says, _I’ll do whatever it takes to feel that again._

Barry is reminded that _whatever it takes_ isn’t a euphemism. That it encompasses, among other crimes, murder.

Barry had been moved by the hunger. He’d felt empathy for it. The darkness – that just makes Barry remember that the man he’d offered kindness to is his mother’s killer.

“Sounds foolish, doesn’t it?” Barry says. “I won’t bother you with stuff like that again.”

Thawne’s eyes snap up, back into focus and locked on Barry’s. Barry holds them for a moment. Smiles softly. Turns to go.

“Mr. Allen,” Thawne says. Barry doesn’t turn back, but he stops, listening. “Are you all right?”

“Me? Fine.”

“You seem a little… upset.”

“Really.” The tone of voice Wells chooses is unfortunately familiar to Barry. Companionable on its face, with clear tones of dryness communicating disbelief and just that subtle hint of self-deprecating irony to leaven the whole. A tone perfectly calculated to win the trust of confused young twenty-somethings who desperately want to believe.

Barry doesn’t want to believe anymore. “I said I’m fine. Just a long day.” He starts again for the door.

“Barry,” Dr. Wells chides gently, even as Barry picks up his jacket and swings it over his back. “Your day was long, certainly, but that’s not usually enough to put you in this kind of mood. What’s really going on?”

“Maybe I just don’t want to talk about it. Have you thought of that?”

“Again, not really like you.”

“Well, tonight I’m full of surprises.” Barry tugs his jacket closer and jams his hands into his pocket. “Goodnight, Dr. Wells.”

It takes Wells a few extra seconds to respond. Barry is halfway out the door before he hears the soft, thoughtful answer: “Goodnight, Barry.”

* * *

The conversation stays with Barry the whole way home. It persists through dinner and into the evening, ruining Barry’s enjoyment of spending time with Joe and Iris _without_ the Flash coloring everything they say or do.

“You’d better get some sleep,” Joe says after they stack the dishes in the kitchen. “You’re still looking pale.”

“You’re not going to work tomorrow, are you?” Iris asks, coming in with the glasses.

“No,” Barry says. “I’m taking a little more time off. Still recovering.”

“The Captain says take as long as you need. And so do I,” Joe says firmly. “We’re staffed just fine at the station, with the interns coming in for the summer right now. You make sure you’re healthy.”

“I will,” Barry promises.

“Good night, Barry,” Iris says, coming over and giving him a warm hug.

Still no electricity. Still no spark. The connection between them is gone.

“Good night,” Barry says, trying not to feel the creeping dread that keeps crawling up his spine. He retreats upstairs and throws himself on his bed, intending to settle in for a good long think. He needs to plan. He needs to strategize. He definitely does _not_ need to mope.

But his thoughts keep drifting away from concrete plans. Everything is upside down. Barry has no one he can talk to. Wells is no friend. Caitlin and Cisco barely know him. He’d decided not to tell Iris and Joe about the Flash, and he stands by that decision, but if he’d thought the isolation had been rough last time around – well, it’s no wonder Barry’s in a bad mood. Whatever Wells had thought.

_How would he know anyway? Oh, that’s right. He’s been watching me for the last fifteen years. Soccer games and science fairs._

_So where does he get off being surprised that I’m out of sorts?_ Barry rolls over onto his back, crossing his arms under his head and staring up at the ceiling. He resists the urge to wave at the camera he knows is concealed at the base of the mobile of the solar system.

 _He was just probing. He wanted you to open up to him._ Really, it had been almost clumsy of Thawne. He’d more than hinted that he had more knowledge than he should of Barry’s usual moods. If Barry didn’t know any better he’d think –

Barry’s eyes widen in horror.

_Oh. Oh, no._

He’d been probing, all right. But not as Wells. _Thawne_ had been probing.

 _That’s not usually enough to put you in this kind of mood,_ Thawne had said. _What’s really going on?_

The correct response – the response of the harried, frightened, naïve young man who’d just learned he’d been a coma for nine months, had woken up with superpowers and been thrown into a fight with another metahuman – the response of someone who feels out of control, and seeks to reassert that control in any means possible – that response is to lash out. To push away the outstretched hand and the approach towards intimacy. To say, in essence, _how do you know what’s enough to put me in this kind of mood? You don’t know anything about me, Dr. Wells._

The problem is –

The problem _is_ –

Dr. Wells _does_ know enough about Barry.

No. Try it again.

Thawne knows enough about Allen.

Wait. One more time.

The Reverse Flash knows enough about the Flash.

_Again, that’s not really like you._

It had been a test. A trap.

Barry had failed it.

_Maybe I just don’t want to talk about it. Have you thought of that?_

_Well, tonight I’m full of surprises._

Not a word said against Wells’ assumption of knowledge. Not a word to challenge Wells' presumption. Barry had answered as if Wells had every reason to know what Barry usually acts like. He had behaved as if he _expects_ Wells to know.

And in doing so, he’d given himself away.

How had Thawne figured it out? Maybe he hadn’t. _Probably_ he hadn’t. He’d just had a hunch. And like any good scientist, he’d tried to collect more data.

Barry probably couldn’t have fooled Thawne forever. Thawne had had years to watch Barry. Oh, sure, they hadn’t officially ‘met’ until after Barry had been struck by lightning. But Barry knows about the secret lab, the hidden cameras. Thawne had watched Barry grow up. Every secret thought, every hidden inclination, every smothered longing that had ever emerged from Barry’s soul had been visible to the man who had created him. Barry has been studiously acting normal in front of the cameras since his second awakening from the coma, but still, eventually Thawne would probably have figured him out.

Key word _eventually_. Barry had only just begun to formulate tentative plans for what to do in this instance. Now he’s out of time.

Literally _and_ figuratively.

 _So_. Barry wants to panic, but he’s gotten unfortunately good at forcing himself to remain calm and focused in the face of bad choices and worse outcomes. _What are your options, Mr. Allen?_

Barry can brazen it out. Pretend that he hasn’t just slipped up badly. Continue the charade. Hope to recover and stonewall Thawne effectively from here on out, or just hope that Thawne chooses, for whatever reasons, to play along with the charade.

Bad idea. If Thawne has his own reasons for doing something, Barry is all but guaranteed not to like them. And even Barry isn’t self-deluded enough to think he’ll stonewall Thawne for a minute longer than Thawne permits himself to be stonewalled.

Option two. He can confront Thawne. Admit that he knows Thawne’s identity. Convince the other speedster to go forward with the plan anyway. Even accelerate it. If Barry doesn’t have to conceal his progress from Thawne, they could be ready to repeat the proton-colliding experiment months ahead of schedule. Thawne goes home sooner – or so he believes – and Barry gets what _he_ wants, too.

Bonus: with Thawne on his side, it will be twice as easy for Barry to keep Cisco, Caitlin and Joe in the dark. And Iris. And everyone else, for that matter.

There’s really no other option.

That doesn’t mean Barry likes it.

 _Secrecy was supposed to be_ my _weapon this time. If Thawne knows about me, he’ll find some way to fuck it up for me. That’s what he does._

Barry sighs. _I’ll sleep on it. Maybe there’s a third option._

He closes his eyes and tries to sleep.

And tries.

And tries.

And fails.

When the clock says 1:06 in bright, scarlet, accusing letters, Barry gets out of bed and laces up his trainers.

He’s got a murderer to meet.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Extra-long chapter this time, partially to make up for the fact that there's going to be a brief hiatus after this, due to yours truly going on vacation. Hooray vacation! There will be no updates next Tuesday (29 March) or Friday (1 April). There may or may not be an update on the following Tuesday (5 April); it depends entirely on how much downtime versus sightseeing my vacation consisted of. Keep an eye on [my tumblr](timeforalongstory.tumblr.com) for updates on that. There will definitely be an update on Friday 8 April, and regularly scheduled updates will resume then.
> 
> I'll have intermittent internet access on my vacation, so please don't hesitate to leave me more of these lovely comments :) They'll add another dimension of enjoyment to my much-needed getaway!

“Barry,” Dr. Wells greets genially, as if it’s perfectly normal for him to be awake and fully dressed, sitting in his unnecessary wheelchair, in the cortex at one in the morning. As if it’s perfectly normal for Barry to blow in, with bed head and jogging clothes thrown haphazardly on, then stop dead and stare at him accusingly.

“You were waiting for me,” Barry says woodenly.

Wells shrugs a little. “That would imply that I was sure you were going to come. I wasn’t.”

“You weren’t?” Barry can’t resist the jab. “With how well you know me?”

Wells acknowledges the touch with a slight smile and a considerably less friendly glimmer in his eyes. “There are parts of you that are a still a mystery, Barry.”

 _Long may_ that _last._ “Well,” Barry says, spreading his hands, “here I am.”

“Indeed. Here you are.” Thawne lingers over the words, putting a different emphasis on them than Barry had. “I suppose I should say ‘welcome’. But somehow I have the feeling that you don’t want to be here any more than I do.”

Barry tips his head in wry acknowledgement. “Two travelers from distant lands.”

“At least metaphorically.”

Barry feels his forehead wrinkle, mystified. _Metaphorically?_ Barry hadn’t been alluding to the physical location of STAR Labs, and the relative distances from each of their houses. He’d been speaking of time. He’d thought Thawne had understood that. Had been speaking in kind. Why suddenly start being cagey now? Thawne knows. Barry knows he knows. Surely they’re here to put their cards on the table –

 _Barry, Barry. Still thinking like a hero._ The chiding voice of his common sense sounds faintly mocking. Sounds, as much has he hates to admit it, like Dr. Wells. _You’re not talking to a hero, are you?_

Barry reevaluates the situation. Thawne had laid his little trap, and Barry had fallen into it. Having realized that, Barry has come here. So far so good. But the other man isn’t gloating. He’s still in the unnecessary wheelchair. He’s still pretending to be Dr. Wells.

 _He’s waiting for something,_ Barry thinks. _What?_

Wells cocks his head slightly to the side. “Barry?”

 _He doesn’t know what_ I _know._ The realization comes to Barry abruptly, and he blinks with the shock of it. _I revealed myself, but – that doesn’t mean I know about him. I could be from any other point in time. I could be from the past. And even if I_ am _from the future, it doesn’t follow that I’ve learned –_

_Thawne isn’t sure. He suspects, and he’s been drawing me out one step at a time, but – he still doesn’t know._

_Which means the question is: how much do I tell him? Do I try to fob him off with the minimum? Or –_

_Or._

_Take control,_ Barry thinks. _Establish a dominant position now. Or at least – an equal position. Shock and awe. Speed and serenity. Just like you’re always trying to teach me, Thawne. Seize the high ground from the start and you’ll never have to defend your position again._

The exact same thing Thawne had done. Becoming Wells, creating the particle accelerator, making himself Barry’s hero – making himself Barry’s savior. Seizing the high ground. Demanding trust and obedience from the very first minute. Making it hard to rebel later, to break free from those unthinking habits of faith.

“You may as well get out of that chair, Thawne,” Barry says, as confidently as he can. “We both know you don’t need it, and this way we can be comfortable while we talk.”

If Barry had been hoping for shock, he’s disappointed. Thawne’s eyes don’t even widen. But Thawne does pause, though he manages to make it seem deliberate, before he stands up from the chair and pushes it away beneath the nearest console.

“All right, Barry,” Thawne says calmly. “You’ve got my attention.”

“Good,” Barry retorts. _Stay on the offense; maybe you can’t keep him off balance, but you can keep up._ “We have a lot to discuss.”

“You said that a moment ago. Do you plan to reach the point any time soon?”

_Thrust and counter-thrust. All right. Bluster is only going to take you so far, Barry. Time to prove your bona fides._

“The point is time travel,” Barry says firmly. “The point is how we’re going to work together to both get what we want.”

“And what do I want?” That damnably ironic smile is back.

“To go back to your own time,” Barry says, forcing himself calm despite his simmering ire.

“I’m from another time.” The upward tick at the corner of Thawne’s mouth could be a smile; the upward tilt of his voice isn’t quite a question.

“Do you want me to recite your biography?”

“I hear you’ve read it twice.”

Barry resists the urge to lick his lips. Thawne isn’t going to budge an inch further than Barry is able to push him. But a conversation in which Barry reveals everything he knows isn’t going to end well either.

Then inspiration strikes, and he smiles.

“Gideon,” Barry says, raising his voice for the benefit of the concealed mics embedded throughout the cortex, but never taking his eyes from Thawne. “Biography of Eobard Thawne.”

“Certainly, Master Allen,” Gideon says. Her head doesn’t materialize; the projection unit for that hasn’t been installed, but the communications are fully functional, and Gideon’s voice comes through the speakers loud and clear. “Thawne, Eobard. Born November 12, 2145 in New Central City – ”

“Pause,” Thawne says curtly. He inclines his head slightly as Gideon obeys the order. “Your point is taken.”

“You want to get back to your own time,” Barry repeats.

“And you?” Thawne leans forward slightly, and Barry loses a precious second to trying to figure out if it’s a pose or genuine curiosity. “What do _you_ want?”

“To save my mother.” Barry, it turns out, _has_ learned a thing or two from watching Eobard Thawne work. He’s learned how to speak the truth and have it sound like a lie.

Thawne will hear what he expects to hear: _I want to go back in time and stop you from killing my mother._ What Barry actually means is considerably more complex.

He knows where it starts. It starts with the Flash from the future, the speedster who is Barry’s eventual self, and that shake of the head that had upended all of Barry’s plans and expectations. It starts with tracking that man down and demanding an explanation. Where it goes from there remains to be seen.

And it’s none of Eobard Thawne’s business. Barry wants to travel through time. He wants to save his mother. That’s all Thawne need know.

“You’re from the future.” Thawne considers Barry, then nods to himself, leaning back against the cortex console in an attitude of relaxation. “You tried to save her before, didn’t you?”

Barry grits his teeth, but there’s no real way to deny it without undermining his own ends. “Yes.”

“It didn’t work?”

“If it had, I wouldn’t be here.”

“Why _are_ you here? What went wrong?”

“I don’t think I’m going to tell you that,” Barry says shortly.

Thawne _tsk_ s. “Then how am I supposed to help you do it better this time around?”

Barry barely keeps himself from recoiling. “You’re not going to,” he snaps. “I don’t want your _help_. I just need your speed.”

“Ah.” Thawne’s grin reappears. “You can’t travel back on your own.”

“Not far enough.” It stings, but Barry makes himself meet his nemesis’ eyes squarely. “I don’t have the speed.”

“But the particle accelerator does.” Thawne nods thoughtfully. “So you propose a truce.”

“I propose an alliance,” Barry counters. “We _could_ spend the next several months tiptoeing around each other. I could conceal my true speed and my rate of progression. You could conceal that you sneak back in here every night to work on your time-ship, or that you periodically raid other labs in order to steal their gear and leave a trail of bodies in your wake.” Barry spreads his hands. He’s trying to hold on to his cool; he has no idea how well he’s succeeding, and it doesn’t help to remind himself that Thawne _always_ looks at others the way a snake looks at a bird they’re considering having for dinner. “Or we could save all that wasted time and effort and work together.”

“You help me, and I help you,” Thawne summarizes. “A quid pro quo.”

“Two speedsters are better than one,” Barry says with a shrug of his shoulders that hopefully communicates insouciance rather than a growing inability not to fidget. “You can’t tell me it wouldn’t have been easier to get that biometric infuser from Mercury Labs last year if you’d had my help.”

That theft had been the last case Barry had worked before the particle accelerator explosion had sidelined him, and he’d dreamed of it often during his confused comatose mental wanderings. It had never been solved, not even in Barry’s own time. Shortly before Barry’s attempt to save his mother, while they’d all been scrambling to build the time-ship and everything else the plan had required, Barry had found the infuser forgotten on a shelf in one of STAR Labs’ many storage rooms. He’d stood there, staring at it, until eventually he’d been gone long enough that Cisco had come looking and pulled him out of his trance.

There had been a lot of moments, after Thawne’s reveal, when Barry had had to confront how Thawne had shaped the Flash. That had been one of the moments that had really struck home that the same had been true of ordinary, pre-speedster Barry Allen.

Barry’s never been free of Thawne. He may as well make sure Thawne isn’t free of him, either.

Thawne is smirking. “You can’t tell _me_ you wouldn’t have been glad to save the lives of the two men I killed getting it.”

“Three.” Summoned from the memory, Barry holds up the appropriate number of fingers. “The janitor was your doing, too.”

“I thought he survived.”

“He didn’t.”

“Pity.”

“Don’t lie to me, Thawne,” Barry says, angry now. “You don’t give a shit about the janitor.”

“But you do,” Thawne observes. “And I give a shit, if you’ll pardon the expression, about you.”

It’s on the tip of Barry’s tongue to snap back at Thawne, to throw in Thawne’s face exactly how well Barry knows how little Thawne truly cares about him. Prudence, at the last minute, stops Barry from speaking. Let Thawne think Barry believes him. Let Thawne think Barry thinks Thawne actually cares. It may be an advantage later on. Regardless, it’s an argument that can’t benefit Barry to have, and should therefore be avoided.

“I see you’ve already deduced one of my conditions for our new partnership,” Barry says instead.

“No killing.”

“It’s like you’re a genius or something.”

“Indeed.”

They regard each other for a long moment across the space of floor Barry is carefully maintaining between them.

“With your assistance the need for incidental casualties should be greatly reduced,” Thawne says finally.

“Eliminated,” Barry says firmly. “There will be _no_ incidental casualties.”

“But there may be deliberate casualties.” Thawne holds up a hand when Barry starts to protest. “There are people for whom the law is kill or be killed, Mr. Allen. If I am in danger of my life I _will_ act to defend myself.”

Barry practically bites through his tongue trying to choke back the instinctive retort that wants so badly to leave his mouth. Finally he grits out, “Fine.” And makes a silent promise that he will prevent that from happening if it kills him.

As if Thawne’s reading Barry’s mind, he adds, “That goes for you as well. My safe return to my time is dependent on your survival. I’ve killed to protect you in the past and I reserve the right to do so again.”

“Let me make this perfectly clear,” Barry says coldly. “If you kill anyone who has not already threatened another with death, I’m out. You can rot in this time until the Earth freezes over.”

“What about your mother?” Thawne’s smirking again. He doesn’t believe Barry means it.

“She wouldn’t want me to save her life at the expense of someone else’s.”

Thawne scrutinizes Barry. Trying to figure out if it’s a bluff. _Good luck, fucker_. Barry has no idea, himself, if it’s a bluff or not. He knows it shouldn’t be. He knows he shouldn’t prioritize his mother’s life over another innocent person’s. But sometimes, sometimes…

“Fine,” Thawne says abruptly.

Barry wants to sag with relief. He forces his knees to lock instead. They’re not done yet. “One more thing,” he says. “If you kill anyone else I care about – _regardless_ of whether they’ve offered another harm – we’re done. Period.”

“Are you saying that if, oh, Joe West shoots me – ”

“Yes, Mr. Thawne, I expect you to be shot.” _Cisco would have loved that line,_ Barry thinks irrelevantly. _Too bad he missed it._ Actually, scratch that. It’s definitely for the best that Cisco isn’t here.

Barry expects Thawne to explode over this suggestion. He’s braced himself for anger. For searing rage or the icy cold lash of Thawne’s tongue. Thawne knows how to hurt Barry better than anyone ever has; probably better than anyone ever will. Barry expects Thawne to employ that skill, now. He’s already steeling himself in preparation of the pain.

He doesn’t expect Thawne to laugh.

“And they call you a hero,” Thawne muses. “You’re more like me than you want to admit.”

“Whatever kind of hero I am, it’s the kind I learned to be from you,” Barry shoots back.

He doesn’t mean to say it. It just happens. That doesn’t mean it isn’t the truth.

Thawne knows it, too, and he studies Barry carefully. For the first time Barry has the sense that Thawne is seeing _him_. The real him. The him that is Barry Allen as much as, if not more than, the scarlet speedster. Something more than the idealized version of the Flash that Thawne must have had in his mind for a very long time.

“You are my legacy,” Thawne says after a moment, intent and dead serious. “My greatest creation.”

Barry’s skin crawls. Because that’s _also_ the truth. Just as it had been truth that Barry had given Thawne a moment ago. Perhaps involuntary, perhaps unwilling, but ringing clear like a bell.

Barry has suddenly had absolutely fucking enough of this conversation.

“So we have an agreement,” Barry says, trying to sound cold. Trying to sound hard.

The slow, pleased smile on Thawne’s face is more than enough to tell him he’s failed. “Oh, yes, Mr. Allen,” he says softly. “We have an agreement.”

Barry should stay. They should discuss the details further. Barry should make sure his conditions are perfectly clear. Ironclad. He should probably push for more guarantees of his own.

He flees instead. And he tries not to hear the sound of Thawne laughing at him in the crackling of his lightning as he runs.

* * *

“Barry, what are you – did you even sleep last night? How did you get here before me?”

Barry startles awake. He hadn’t meant to doze, but even after running laps through and around the city for hours, he’d still gotten to Jitters half an hour before they’d opened. He’d just leaned against the side of the building for a moment. Closed his eyes, briefly.

He pries them open now, and smiles weakly at Iris’ shocked, indignant face. “Couldn’t sleep,” he says.

“Come in, come on,” she says, still worried, fumbling the key into the lock and opening the door. “Sit down. I’ll make you some coffee, you shouldn’t be outside, it’s cold and I think it’s going to rain again.”

“Nah. Rain’s stopped for good.” He’d seen the cloud formations dispersing on the round trip between Central and Starling.

“Were you out in it?” Iris stops halfway through tying on her apron to give Barry a look that would do any scolding mother proud.

It just makes Barry feel weary. Iris is trying, but Barry’s real mother needs him, and he’s failed her twice so profoundly that he feels weighed down with it.

Or maybe that’s just the sleepless night spent pushing himself to the limits of his speed. Either way, he really doesn’t want to deal with Iris trying to mother him right now.

Iris plunks down a mug in front of him. “All right, don’t answer me,” she mutters.

Barry reaches for the mug sheepishly. Had he dozed off again? The coffee is rich and warm. He must have, if Iris had had time to make this for him. “Thank you,” he says. “For the coffee.”

“Yeah, well, while you drink it you can tell me why you need it.” Iris doesn’t look at him. Instead she snatches up a rag and starts wiping down the counters. They don’t need it, but she attacks them like they’re filthy.

Barry takes a drink of his coffee and contemplates the way warmth fills him. “I don’t know, it’s just – ” he struggles to find a way to say it that Iris will understand, that doesn’t reveal anything Barry doesn’t want to reveal. _Is this how Thawne feels all the time? Trying to translate everything from the future to the present, all of his usual reference points gone, and all his secrets still to keep?_ True, Thawne is keeping secrets for evil purposes, not to keep others safe. True, Thawne had put himself in this position through his own actions… of course, upon reflection, so has Barry. Hasn’t he.

Barry pushes this aside and says, “I needed to get out.” He tries to laugh. “I thought moving back in with you guys for a few days would help, but instead I feel like the walls are closing in.” Last night, the thought of going back to the West household after talking with Thawne had been unbearable. Barry isn’t entirely sure why. It’s can’t be that he’s afraid of leading Thawne back to the Wests: Thawne knows perfectly well who Barry’s foster family are, what they mean to him. That ship’s sailed. Barry had thought, next that he’d wanted to get away from Thawne’s surveillance – which he’s realized, belatedly, he hadn’t demanded Thawne disable – but coming to Jitters undoes that; there are cameras here, too. The closest Barry has been able to come has been to call this feeling _disassociation_. The Wests represent his old life. The pre-coma Barry Allen. The person he’d used to be.

Right now, Barry doesn’t know who that person is anymore.

“I know how you feel,” Iris says wryly. “Dad’s great, but he’s a little overbearing.”

“You said it.” _And I can’t tell him anything. Well, I could. But I know what would happen next._

“Have you talked to your dad?”

Barry stares at Iris blankly. “My dad?”

“I know my dad called to let him know you were awake, but have you gone and talked to him yourself?”

“I – no.” Barry fights the urge to curl up on himself. “I haven’t.”

“Maybe you should.”

“No!”

That comes out a little more loudly than he intends it to. Iris doesn’t quite jump, but it’s close. She stops scrubbing and turns to face Barry.

“Why not?” In tones of surprise and puzzlement.

_Because I can’t face him and tell him that I had the chance to save Mom, but I failed. I can’t tell him that I’m going to try again, but it’s going to involve deleting everything. Everything he’s already gone through, everything he’s going to go through, it’s all going to be for nothing._

_Because he’d know. He’d know I’m not his son. Not really. And I still don’t know where his son is, or what’s happened to him._

Barry has recourse to his coffee cup again, this time to hide behind. “I can’t,” is all he says.

Iris’ face softens. “I know you’ve been through a lot,” she says. “Maybe you just need another few days.”

“Yeah. Yeah, maybe.” _Not likely._

Iris is still looking compassionate. Barry tries to appreciate the look. Tries to bask in her concern and attention. He’d used to like it when Iris looked at him like this. It had used to feed a set of hopes and dreams that he’d never outgrown, no matter what Joe had promised Barry when he’d first confessed his feelings to his foster father.

Barry tries to recall those hopes and dreams. Tries to find the feeling of comfort and safety they’d always brought. A pleasant daydream of a better future, even when the present had been hard to deal with.

They come. But they don’t feel like they used to. They feel small. Ill-fitting. Like a favorite sweater that’s been outgrown.

Iris moves around the counter and over to where Barry is sitting. She reaches down, like she’s going to take Barry’s empty coffee cup, but she doesn’t. She lays her hand over Barry’s instead. Warm. Comforting. Sisterly.

Nothing else.

Still no zing.

 _It’s because you’re out of sync with each other,_ Barry tells himself firmly. _Because you’re not from the same time stream. When I fix everything, when I save Mom, that’ll fix this too. That’ll put everything back to normal. We’ll grow up next door to each other, the way it always should have been. And then who knows? Maybe it will all happen, just like I used to dream. Maybe we’ll fall in love in high school and go to prom together and get married right after college. Or maybe not. But either way, it won’t be like this. It just feels weird now because I’m from another timeline. Once I fix that, everything will be okay._

“You’re always welcome with Dad and I,” Iris says sincerely.

Another memory intrudes. Thawne, saying, _I suppose I should say ‘welcome’. But somehow I have the feeling that you don’t want to be here any more than I do._

Barry doesn’t shove Iris’ hand away, but it’s a near thing. He just goes still and doesn’t respond. Iris is lingering, waiting for Barry to say something. When he doesn’t she withdraws.

If she’s hurt, though, she doesn’t show it. She just collects Barry’s empty coffee cup and leaves a sympathetic smile in its wake.

* * *

The rest of the day is awkward. Barry hasn’t gone back to work yet, and he’s not entirely sure he wants to – he’s starting to worry it will get in the way, be just another complication in an already complicated life – but without it filling his time, he’s at a loose end.

Joe is gone all day. That at least suits Barry’s mood. Joe’s a suspicious bastard, and the last thing Barry needs is for him to turn full Detective West on Barry himself. Iris’ shift at Jitters stretches into the early afternoon. The logical thing to do would be to go to STAR Labs. Work on his speed, work on Thawne’s time-ship. But Barry still feels raw from last night’s confrontation – this morning’s confrontation – and the last thing he wants to do is be in Thawne’s company while he’s vulnerable.

So Barry kicks around the West household. Tries to think, to plan, and fails. Does laundry. Helps Iris with her resume when she comes home. Encourages her send her resume to several news outlets, including, Barry sees with some amusement, the Central City Picture News.

“They’re the biggest paper in the region, Barry. What are they going to hire _me_ for? My degree isn’t even in journalism!”

“The best reporters come from other backgrounds,” Barry says confidently, quoting Mason Verger. Though – has Verger even said that yet? _Doesn’t matter_. “This portfolio is really good. You’ve been working hard the last nine months.”

“Well, I needed something to occupy my time,” Iris sighs. “Working at Jitters isn’t exactly how I pictured my post-graduation life. But it’s all I could get.”

“They’d be a fool not to take you,” Barry says. He leans over and clicks _send_ on the application form before Iris can change her mind, and grins at her squawk out of outrage. “You’ll thank me one day.”

“Either that or I’ll finally get to say _I told you so_ ,” Iris says resignedly.

Iris leaves shortly after that, extracting a promise from Barry that he’ll cover for her to Joe about her whereabouts. She’s going to see Eddie, of course. Barry promises faithfully and manages to watch her go without, he hopes, too much of a fuss.

When she’s gone, Barry heads towards the kitchen, intending to rummage through the fridge. He’s forestalled by his phone ringing.

Fishing it out, he puts it to his ear. “Hello?”

“Mr. Allen?”

 _Thawne._ Instinctively Barry tenses.

“What do you want?” he says sharply.

“I’ve discovered some information that I think you would like to possess. Information relevant to your circumstances, and our mutual goals,” Thawne adds, as if he thinks he needs to sweeten the pot. Perhaps he does.

“Okay, so, what is it?”

Thawne’s huff of annoyance sounds entirely unfeigned. “Mr. Allen, surely you can appreciate it would be unwise to speak of these things over an open line. If you would grace STAR Labs with your presence – ”

Barry glances at the clock. Not yet three o’clock. Joe won’t be home for another few hours, even if he _doesn’t_ have to work late. Iris is likewise out of the way. No one is expecting him; he has no other responsibilities. No real excuse, therefore, to say no.

_Why would you want to? Isn’t this what you want? To get faster, to save your mom? What are you stalling for?_

“All right,” Barry says reluctantly. “I’ll come straight over.”

“Thank you,” Thawne says with decidedly perfunctory courtesy. Barry rolls his eyes at the nearest surveillance camera, and feels a brief moment of satisfaction when Thawne sighs in annoyance.

Barry hangs up on Thawne without further ado and jogs upstairs to grab his Cisco-certified speed-safe sneakers. He laces them up briskly then stands, stretching. Briefly he wonders what Thawne wants. Then he dismisses the thought. He’ll find out soon enough.

If nothing else, the run over to STAR Labs might clear his head.

* * *

Barry breezes into STAR Labs at his usual speed – and why had it never occurred to anyone to ask why STAR Labs’ security systems could accommodate a speedster’s velocity? – and makes for the cortex. He’s stopped by Gideon’s soft voice.

“Excuse me, Master Allen, but Professor Thawne is in the Time Vault.”

Barry redirects himself. “Thanks, Gideon,” he says out of habitual politeness.

“Oh, good.” Thawne looks up as Barry enters the room. Then he checks his watch. “Hm. About six hundred knots, I’d say. You were lowballing it at the proving grounds?”

“Wouldn’t you?”

“Is 600 your top speed?”

“Nah. You didn’t say it was _that_ urgent.”

“No.” Thawne waves at the display. When Barry had been in here last, it had been in use showing the newspaper from the future. _FLASH MISSING, VANISHES IN CRISIS._ Along with the critical date: April 25, 2024.

Not now. Now the display has been subdivided into quadrants, each showing the feed from one of Thawne’s surveillance cameras. At the moment, the chosen four are coverage of the cortex and the medical bay. The only visible occupant is Barry Allen, still in a coma, hooked up to a plethora of medical equipment. The timestamp is frozen at 1:53 A.M., three nights ago.

“What am I looking at?” Barry asks.

“The night before you woke up.” Thawne taps at the controls. “You didn’t tell me exactly when you’d arrived at this point in time, so I went looking on my own. There was a surge of tachyon particles at about three A.M. on this night.”

“I didn’t _know_ when I’d arrived,” Barry feels compelled to point out, though why he’s defending himself escapes him. Barry had never claimed that he’d told Thawne everything there is to tell. Thawne wouldn’t believe Barry if he _did_ claim that. Or he’d mock Barry for it.

Thawne waves a hand airily, dismissing this. “I pulled up the security feeds.”

“You mean the feeds from your creepy Barry-watching cameras,” Barry says. “I’m going to want you to disable those, by the way.”

“We can talk about that.”

“It’s not negotiable.”

Thawne’s smile doesn’t noticeably dim. “Mr. Allen, you have a lot to learn about negotiation. At the moment you have one and only one trump card, which is your stated willingness to – how did you put it? Leave me to rot in this time? While I believe that you would do it under the right conditions, I also know that those conditions will be extreme. By denying me my return trip, you’re also denying your mother her life. Your father his freedom. Yourself your happily-ever-after.” Scorn creeps into Thawne’s voice at the end of this pronouncement. “I do believe that you would do it in the event of the death of someone you love. I do _not_ believe that you would do it over a few surveillance cameras.” Thawne finishes with his fiddling and gestures at the screen. “Especially not once you begin appreciate their value.”

Barry closes his teeth over the curses that want to spill out. Thawne’s right, damn him. And by having asked in the first place, Barry’s just taken a step backwards in the little power game he’s playing with Thawne. The only practical thing Barry can do is to stem the bleeding and acquiesce. However much it burns.

“What did you have to show me?” Barry demands, in lieu of what he really wants to say.

Thawne gestures again to the screen. “This is about an hour or so before the tachyon surge.”

The timestamp starts ticking forward. 1:53, 1:54, 1:55.

The playback is largely still and silent for the first five minutes or so. The only sound is the faint hum of the HVAC and the occasional beeps of the monitoring equipment. The video is sharp enough that the faint rise and fall of the comatose Barry’s chest is visible as he breathes. A graph of Barry’s vitals continues to populate on one of the monitors.

“What am I seeing?”

“Watch. It’s subtle.”

Barry watches. There’s nothing. No one enters the frame. No sudden sounds are made. There’s no movement of any kind.

“You’ll see it first in the left hand.” Thawne comes around and points to the appropriate spot on the lower-left screen. “Where the IV is hooked in.”

Barry concentrates his vision there. He sees an IV. He sees a hand. He sees the bed the coma patient is lying on, beneath it.

Wait. Beneath it –

“I can see through him,” Barry blurts out.

“Yes.” Thawne goes back to the controls. “I’ll speed it up now.”

The videos leap forward. Or so the timestamps all aver. The patient in the bed – the Barry Allen who’s supposed to be here, now, the one who matches this time and this timeline – never moves. He simply fades slowly out of existence. Until the blanket lies crumpled over an empty bed, equipment carelessly strewn across it, as if someone had used it and then failed to put it away.

On the monitor, the graph stops filling.

“He vanished,” Barry says numbly.

“Here,” Thawne says. He presses another control, and the camera feed on the upper right-hand quadrant blinks out to be replaced by another graph. “These are the tachyon readings for STAR Labs during the same period in time. Watch it again and track those.”

Thawne backs the video feed up an hour. Plays it again. The tachyon readings start low, but they don’t stay that way. They climb steadily. After five minutes there’s a spike, just as the comatose Barry’s hands start to become translucent. Over the next hour there are a series of spikes, while all the while the background reading rises, too.

The last spike is too high for the measuring equipment to accurately. The readout leaps to the top of the chart and remains there, while on the screen Barry Allen is gone.

“So,” Barry says. “That’s what happened to the me who’s supposed to be here. That’s why he never came back. Why I haven’t been able to find him.” _Not that you’ve been looking very hard, have you?_ Barry feels a moment of guilt over that, but pushes it aside.

“Deleted from the timeline,” Thawne says. He pauses the video and turns to Barry. “I think you’d better tell me exactly how you came to be here, Mr. Allen. We may be in a bigger mess than you think.”

Barry shakes his head, not in denial, but in confusion. “That shouldn’t have happened,” he protests. “I didn’t actually change anything!”

“You mean you didn’t save your mother,” Thawne says sternly. “What else might you have done? Start at the beginning. Tell me everything.”

“I went back in time,” Barry says. He’s too busy staring – at the empty, frozen space on the screen where someone who looks just like him is supposed to be – to notice or care that he’s offering Thawne information with no clear expectation of gain or advantage. “I went to save my mother, I was determined to save my mother – you were going to go home. The time ship was built. We injected the particle, I broke the sound barrier, I collided with it. I took its energy and I went back in time. Just like you taught me. I focused on the night my mother was killed and then I was there.”

“All right,” Thawne prompts. “Then what?”

“I waited for you all to leave.” Barry closes his eyes, remembering. “My younger self came downstairs, he was woken by the fighting, just like I remember. My father too. My future self was fighting you. I was supposed to wait until my future self grabbed my past self and got them out of the house. Then I could go in, stop you. Save my mother.”

“What went wrong?”

Barry opens his eyes and focuses on Thawne. “My future self. I peeked in, to see if it was time yet. It wasn’t. You didn’t see me, you were distracted… but he did. He looked right at me and he shook his head.”

“He shouldn’t have been able to do that – ”

“Well he did!” Barry tries to laugh and realizes, to his dismay, that it’s coming out more as a choking sob. “He told me not to save her, and then he ran away with my younger self and you – you – ”

“Barry. _Barry._ ”

Barry claps his hands over his mouth to stop himself from crying. His mother has a right to his tears, but he’ll be damned if he lets Thawne see him break down.

Thawne looks like he’s torn between several conflicting impulses. One hand rises, perhaps to reach out towards Barry, before swinging sideways to land on the control panel as if he’d always intended to rest it there. His mouth, too, opens and closes three times before he settles on what he wants to say.

“You obeyed your future self?”

“I didn’t know what he might know that I didn’t,” Barry says miserably through his hands. “I wanted to ask him, but he was gone. So I decided I needed to follow him back to his time. To 2024. To ask him what the problem was. I thought we’d figure it out, solve it, and then I could save my mom. But I didn’t have enough energy to make it there. I ended up here – a year short, even, of where I should have been – ”

“That shouldn’t have happened, either,” Thawne says in frustration. “What do you mean, you didn’t have enough energy?”

“I ran out. I started traveling forward, but I ended up here.”

“You didn’t mean to be here? It wasn’t on purpose?”

“Of course it wasn’t on purpose!”

“Barry, you should have had no problem reaching 2024.”

Barry lowers his hands, slowly, staring at Thawne. “What – what do you mean? I didn’t have enough energy. The particle – ”

“The particle should have given you energy and to spare.” Thawne shakes his head impatiently. “You could have traveled to the year 3024 on the boost you got from colliding with that particle, if you’d wanted to. The energy can’t have been the problem.”

“What – then – what was?”

“Something you did.” Thawne spins on his heel and starts pacing, muttering to himself. After a few circuits, he stops at the far end of the room and waves his hand at one of the walls, which slides away to reveal another of the transparent dry-erase boards that litter STAR Labs. It’s covered with equations that Barry can barely understand. Thawne obviously doesn’t have that problem, if the way he snatches up a marker and starts scribbling is any guide.

“What are you talking about?” Barry asks wearily.

“When you travel through time you take yourself out of the time-stream,” Thawne says. He doesn’t sound superior or condescending, for once; he just sounds absent and vaguely professorial. “One of the effects of that is that you’re protected from changes in it. It’s how I expected to be able to arrive home, after you went back in time to save your mother, rather than being deleted by the changes you were going to make.”

“Oh,” Barry says blankly. He hadn’t thought of that. Yes, of course, Thawne – his Thawne – _this_ Thawne – he should have been deleted entirely, if Barry had saved his mother. Because he would have been defeated. Because he would never have had the chance to kill Dr. Wells and Tess Morgan in the first place, if he’d been captured before killing Nora.

Thawne’s continuing. “Being separate from the timestream can cause its own problems. You’re insulated from consequences of any changes, but that also means you have no insight into them. You entered the speed force with the intention of traveling to a specific point in space and time. Correct?”

“Yeah,” Barry says. “I wanted to talk to my future self. The one who had told me not to save Mom. I wanted to go to April 25, 2024 and talk to him.”

Thawne writes out the result of an equation, then crosses it out with a big X. “That’s very specific. Almost _too_ specific. Not just a date and a time. If that’s all you’d wanted, to go to April 25, 2024, you probably would have ended up there. Which would have been its own nightmare, but back to the point. You wanted more than that. You wanted to speak to a specific person. The Flash of that time period.” Thawne writes a different answer to the same equation and circles it. “And when that person was wiped from existence, so was your destination. You ran forward in time as far as you could, up until the moment of that person’s deletion, and then – when you could go no further – you fell out.”

“I fell out?”

Thawne strides back over and taps the controls for the cameras. Playback resumes, showing the empty cortex, the empty medical bay. It stays that way, silent and unmoving, for perhaps twenty seconds. Then, with an audible _whomp,_ another Barry Allen appears.

“There you are,” Thawne says, with a flourish.

Barry stares at himself. He’s still wearing his scarlet suit, but even as he watches it fades away, to be replaced with the same STAR Labs t-shirt and jogging pants that he’d woken up in. The discarded medical equipment fades away, too, to be replaced with a different set, all correctly placed. The graph in the corner begins tracking again with an audible beep.

“How did it do all that?” he whispers.

“Time is… squishy,” Thawne says, tapping a thumb and forefinger together in illustration, “right around a major disruption. The Barry Allen from 2014 was deleted, but that deletion would have caused at least one paradox, probably more. _You_ were going to meet the Barry Allen from 2024, but got kicked out of the speed force and landed here. Time knit the two events together – ” Thawne folded his hands together, fingers interlocking – “to get itself back on track. And so here you are.”

Barry swallows. “I thought I just didn’t have enough energy to get to the future,” he whispers. “I didn’t mean to delete anyone.”

“You didn’t delete someone by appearing here, Barry. Your appearance and your original’s deletion are both effects of the same cause. You changed something back in the year 2000. Something that had the effect of deleting you from the time stream here in 2014.”

 _I didn’t do anything_ , Barry wants to protest. He doesn’t. The proof is staring him right in the face. Something he’d done had deleted his original self. Knocked him out of the timeline to take his place. Barry hadn’t consciously changed the past, but the butterfly effect is both subtle and far-reaching. Obviously _something_ had gone wrong.

Barry takes a moment to grapple with the sheer unfairness of this. He’d gone back in time fully intending to change the past. Then he’d stepped back at his older self’s command. Let his mother die at Thawne’s hands. All to find out that time had been changed anyway.

He’s paying the price with none of the benefit.

Barry squares his shoulders. “What do we do?”

“We fix it.” At Barry’s startled look, Thawne shakes his head, a crooked grin on his face. “There’s no home for either of us to go to while the timeline is like this, Barry. If your future is gone, then so is mine. Any future we go to now is the future of _this_ reality.”

Thawne thumbs the controls again. A newspaper appears. The _Central City Citizen._ Still dated April 25, 2024.

 _RETURN TO SENDER_ , the headline says. _U.S. POST OFFICE SHUTS DOWN PERMANENTLY._

“Oh, _shit_ ,” Barry breathes.

“My sentiments exactly,” Thawne says wryly.

“We have to fix it!”

“We will.”

“But if going to the future won’t help – ”

“We go to the past.” At Barry’s startled look, Thawne nods. “Yes, the past. All the way back to the night your mother was killed.”

“Because that’s when I changed the timeline.”

“That’s when the timeline changed, anyway. I’m not so sure it was you.”

“Then who?”

“How did your future self know you were there?”

“I don’t know,” Barry has to admit. “It’s been bugging me, too. He shouldn’t have known. Should he?”

“No.” Thawne turns his head, goes back to studying the equations on the dry erase board. “According to both of our understandings of the timeline, he shouldn’t have. And yet he did. Which means our understandings are incomplete…”

Thawne trains off, frowning at a group of Greek characters who seem to be getting frisky with an abacus in the lower right-hand corner. “You thought your answers were in the future, but they’re not. They’re in the past. In that room. In the year 2000. _That’s_ where we have to go.”

Barry closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Back to that room. Back to the worst night of his life. Back to witnessing his mother’s death, and being unable to stop it.

 _But if that’s the only way, ultimately, to save her…_ can he do it? Even knowing that – can Barry bear to relive that night, again, without saving her?

“Barry.” There’s a soft touch on Barry’s shoulder. He opens his eyes to see Thawne standing there, hand hovering just over Barry’s arm, watching him. “We’ll fix this.”

Barry stares up at Thawne. He wants to say something cutting. He wants to give voice to his fear. To his anger. To his hatred of this man who is ultimately the cause of it all, the flashpoint at the center of the fire.

But he’s scared, and frustrated, and more than any of those other things, Barry wants someone to tell him it will all be okay.

“How can you be so sure?” he asks, and knows Thawne can hear the plea it contains.

“We’re smart, stubborn, and fast.” There’s a light in Thawne’s eyes that’s entirely new, something Barry has never seen before. A rarity, between the two of them. “If we work together, I don’t think there’s anything we couldn’t accomplish.”

Barry tries to swallow, fails. He tries to smile, and fails worse.

But, God help him – when Thawne says it, Barry believes him.

“All right,” Barry whispers. He still can’t quite swallow. The words come out dry.

But they still come out. “I’m in.”


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back! I hope everyone had a lovely break; I certainly enjoyed my vacation. Thank you for all the lovely comments. They were great to read during my travels :) I hope this new chapter is enjoyable and worth the wait!

Thawne, it turns out, has a list of tech he’s been waiting for the ideal moment to pilfer. With Barry agreeing to assist, the ideal moment seems to be _immediately_.

“You’re the only forensic scientist on the police force worth worrying about,” Thawne says dismissively. His fingers are moving rapidly over the keypad guarding entrance to one of Palmer Technologies’ secure labs. “And if I don’t need to conceal my speed from you, well.”

“Why didn’t you just steal this stuff while I was in a coma, then?” Barry grumps. He’s got his hands against a supply closet door, holding it closed against the increasingly confused and frantic efforts of three security guards, who had abruptly found themselves inside it minutes ago. Barry’s usual strength wouldn’t be enough to accomplish this task, but vibrate his hands fast enough and he can generate more than enough force to hold the door closed.

“It wasn’t ready yet,” Thawne says. “They only just got the prototype working – aha!” The keypad blinks green. Moments later, the prototype is safely in STAR Labs, and the security guards are left to break down the door and stare in dismay at their overridden security system and missing tech.

“So what do we do with it?” Barry asks. He’s trying not to sound dubious, but – “It looks more like a pile of junk than an advanced piece of technology.”

“That’s because it is,” Thawne says smugly. He places the pile of junk atop what looks like a low-height table in a laboratory attached to the Time Vault. It’s actually one of Gideon’s interfaces: contactless data transfer is apparently a solved problem in the future. “This is only the hardware. I’d die of old age if I waited for the development of quantum computing. Fortunately I brought my own. Gideon, load up the software, will you?”

“Of course, Professor Thawne.” The black surface underneath the prototype lights up, first green, then fading to orange. “The data transfer speed is extremely limited. I estimate six hours for complete transfer and subsequent installation.”

Thawne nods briskly. “Well, you heard the AI. Nothing more we can do till it’s done.”

“I guess there really is rest for the wicked,” Barry says. He intends it as a joke, but he’s all too aware it falls flat. “I’m going home. I could use a shower. Do you, uh…” he regards his clothes dubiously.

Well. Barry calls them _his clothes_ , because he’s wearing them, but they’re actually Thawne’s. When Barry had shown up for this heist in jeans and a t-shirt, Thawne had shaken his head in disgust.

“Seriously? It’s like you’ve never burgled a high-security facility before,” he’d said.

“Funnily enough, I haven’t,” Barry had replied. “What’s the problem? They’re dark jeans.” And the t-shirt had been black. “You’ll have to excuse me if I didn’t want to wear the Flash suit to a robbery.”

“You need _something_ you can run in without it catching on fire,” Thawne had said. He’d frowned, and grumbled to himself, and said, “Wait here.” Then he’d zipped out and come back a literal second later with a pile of clothes. Black clothes. Long-sleeved shirt, long pants. Socks. By touch alone Barry can tell they’re made of the same cotton-fiber blend that goes into the Flash’s suit.

“I hope you didn’t just raid the gift shop,” Barry had said, trying not to let himself realize that the clothes he’d been holding were a few inches too short in the leg and wide in the shoulder. That they were, in fact, sized more for Thawne than for Barry.

“The gift shop doesn’t sell discreet black speedster-safe clothes,” Thawne had said shortly. “You can borrow those for tonight.”

There had been several things Barry could have said to the insanity of Thawne expecting Barry to commit theft _while wearing his clothes_. Many of them had been humorous. One or two of them had been downright uncomfortable. But the one Barry had said out loud, the one that he hadn’t been able to swallow down, had been: “Tell me you’ve never killed anyone while wearing these.”

Thawne had snorted. “I don’t number my outfits, Barry. I have no idea.”

Which, well. What had Barry expected Thawne to say? He’d changed into the clothes in silence, and tried his best to forget about their provenance. Which, given that he’d had to roll the socks up to meet the shorter length of the pants, and that the wider shoulders had meant he’d kept having to push the sleeves up on his elbows, had been all but impossible.

Now, robbery successful, Thawne just shakes his head in irritation. “There’s showers down in the employee gym,” he says. “Drop the clothes in the chute there; the laundry facility is automated. One of the many excellent benefits STAR Labs provides for its valued employees!” Towards the end, his voice takes on the sing-song quality of an advertisement.

“Plus it means no one ever asks why you’re washing bloodstains out of your clothes,” Barry guesses dully.

“Why do you think the employee gym has a boxing ring and a martial arts plaza?” Thawne’s teeth flash, too pointed to be called a smile.

“Is there anything you don’t think of?” Barry says, sharper than he’d intended.

The not-smile slips off Thawne’s face like it had never been there. “You, Mr. Allen,” he says. “I never saw _you_ coming.”

Two nights later, for their second raid, Thawne hands Barry a set of clothes that are perfectly sized. He doesn’t volunteer where he’d gotten them. Barry decides not to ask.

* * *

The first three robberies go off without a hitch. So does dealing with Multiplex. This time Barry is prepared for Black’s attempted tackle, and manages to catch the man rather than let him tumble out the window. One fewer death on Barry’s conscience, though from the way Black is screaming as they close the pipeline up behind him, he might genuinely have preferred death.

Thawne finds Barry musing over it later, staring off into space with a multimeter dangling from his hand instead of assiduously repairing the particle accelerator’s electrical systems. “Don’t get too tied up in it,” Thawne says bluntly. “With the kind of changes we’re contemplating to the timeline, none of this is going to matter anyway.”

“I don’t find that as comforting as you seem to,” Barry sighs.

“Well, start.” At Barry’s skeptical eyebrow, Thawne huffs. “Barry, you’re a speedster. Whatever you may be telling yourself now, this is not going to be the only instance of time travel in your long life. The earlier you start developing the proper perspective, the better.”

“Perspective.” Barry shakes his head. “When you say it, all I hear is another excuse to think that other people don’t matter.”

Thawne rolls his eyes. “Spare me the hero shtick. I think we both know how seriously you take it.”

“I _am_ serious!” Barry had been sitting, the better to mess with the access panel, which is placed low to the ground. Now he comes to his feet, angry. “Not that you’d ever know, but – I’m not out there saving people for glory, Thawne. I’m doing it because it’s the right thing to do. Sometimes I’m tired, sometimes I’m hungry, sometimes I would rather do anything else but go out there to get my butt kicked by another metahuman with a chip on their shoulder, but I go out there anyway. You know that!”

“No, I don’t,” Thawne contradicts.

Barry blinks, thrown off his stride. “What?”

“I _don’t_ know.” Thawne smiles humorlessly. “Like I said. You need to develop perspective. You’re talking to me like I’m the same person you left behind in 2015. Well, I’m not. As far as I’m concerned, you just woke up from your coma a month ago. The only hero work I’ve seen you do was take down the Weather Wizard and Multiplex.”

“And that building I evacuated – ”

“Yes, a small series of public services that could have been accomplished by the city’s employees, albeit more slowly and with additional collateral damage. Whoo-hoo. Someone get you the key to the city.”

Barry processes this. Then he says, slowly, “But that’s not all you’ve seen of me.”

Something goes flat and hard behind Thawne’s eyes. “Don’t.”

“You met my future self. When you first came back in time, you landed in the 2020s, didn’t you?”

“Yes.” Thawne turns away, clearly about to leave.

Barry’s ready for the move. He grabs Thawne’s arm, forcing the other speedster to either stop or start an outright physical fight. “How long were you there? Months? Years?”

“What do you care?”

“You saw what kind of hero I am.”

The stretch of Thawne’s lips can’t be called a smile, this time, not even a humorless one. “Oh, yes, _Flash,_ ” he says scornfully. “I saw.”

Thawne brings his other arm up and uses it to push Barry back a step. It stops short of being an outright blow, but there’s enough of the speed force behind it that Barry rocks back on his heels, tingling from grounding Thawne’s lightning. His grip on Thawne’s arm loosens, and Thawne pulls away.

“Would you care for me to think of you as that Flash?” Thawne asks. “You’ve asked me to treat you differently. To work with you. To help you achieve your ends. To trust that, in turn, you will help me achieve mine. Do you want to alter that arrangement?”

Barry, lips pressed tightly together, doesn’t answer.

“Do you want me to do to you what I would like to do to him?”

Barry feels his heart speed up. Thawne is pulling on the speed force, strongly enough that it’s pulling on Barry, too. As time slows, Barry’s senses sharpen, until the mocking challenge in Thawne’s face and voice are all he can see or hear.

Then time snaps back. Thawne takes a deep breath and looks away.

“No. I didn’t think so.” Thawne takes a step back and inclines his head slightly. “Perspective.”

Barry still doesn’t respond. Thawne nods to himself. Then he turns and walks away.

This time Barry lets him go.

* * *

Barry’s still thinking about that challenge over dinner later that night. It keeps him distracted, and his contributions to the table’s conversation are brief. It also keeps him from noticing the looks Joe and Iris are exchanging until he hears the clearing of a throat and the unwelcome, “Barry?”

Barry’s fork clatters on his plate, and he jumps, then winces. “Sorry, sorry.” He picks up his fork again and stabs at his spaghetti, trying not to look at Joe, who had spoken, or Iris, who is watching worriedly. “Mmm. Delicious.”

Barry may not be looking, but he still knows when Joe and Iris share pointed looks over Barry’s head.

“All right,” Joe says, apparently the one elected to speak. “Let’s talk about this. Barry, we’re worried about you.”

“I’m fine,” Barry says, reaching for his glass.

“I know you said you didn’t feel ready to come back to work yet at the station – ”

“I don’t.”

“ – and that’s fine. In fact, I agree that you’re not ready yet. You don’t _look_ ready.”

“What?” Startled, Barry forgets that he’s avoiding eye contact and looks up. That’s a bad move. Iris is giving Barry the puppy-dog-eyes, and Joe has adopted the Reasonable Face, close cousin to the Reasonable Voice and equally to be hated.

“I know you’re not sleeping well,” Iris says. “Your room’s right by mine, I can hear it when you’re up at all hours.”

More like she hears it when Barry comes and goes – he’s super-fast, not super-silent, and Barry and Thawne have been working around the clock. Speedsters need less rest than ordinary humans. But: “It’s not a big deal,” Barry says, hoping against hope that his foster family will drop it.

No such luck. “You’ve got dark circles under your eyes,” Iris adds. Barry hides his grimace in his glass of water. Speedsters need _less_ sleep, but still probably more than he’s been getting.

“Plus you’re still too skinny,” Joe says. “You lost a bunch of weight in the coma, but you don’t seem to be gaining it back.”

“Come on, you guys. You know how much I’ve been eating,” Barry argues. He shoves more spaghetti into his mouth to prove his point. Even with Cisco’s enhanced protein bars, Barry’s increased food intake has been noticeable. Cisco hasn’t quite got supply up to demand yet. Or rather, he’s making plenty of protein bars for _one_ speedster, but he’s feeding two. Apparently Thawne’s damaged connection to the speed force doesn’t reduce his appetite. Barry doesn’t even want to think about how Thawne’s been coping for the past fifteen years.

“And yet.” Joe gestures with his fork, seeming to think Barry’s mouthful of spaghetti is somehow proving _Joe’s_ point. “That makes me think that maybe something else is wrong. When’s the last time you visited that doctor at STAR Labs? Maybe she should run a few more tests.”

“Caitlin? Dr. Snow?” Barry amends hastily. “I was over there just today, in fact – ”

“Yeah, probably not getting tests done, if you’re calling her Caitlin,” Joe says astutely. Barry sputters over the unfairness of this – especially in front of Iris, whose eyebrows have shot up – but has to admit that, no, Caitlin hadn’t run any tests on him lately.

“But I’m fine. I _swear._ ”

“Something’s up, Bar. Don’t think I can’t tell,” Joe says, stern now. “Go on over there tomorrow. And tell Dr. Snow I want to hear about the results.”

“We’re just worried about you,” Iris repeats.

Barry wants to slide under the table and hide. “Fine,” he says to his plate. It’s not like they’re wrong: something _is_ up. He’s just not going to tell them what it is.

Hopefully Caitlin will agree to lie to Joe for him. Barry hasn’t been spending as much time with she and Cisco this time around, all of his focus on rebuilding the particle accelerator. He’s rationalized it by thinking that, once the timeline resets, it won’t matter anyway. That there will be plenty of time to forge their friendship _after_ he gets the timeline back to where it’s supposed to be. Now, with Thawne’s challenge echoing in his head, Barry doesn’t find that line of reasoning as solid as he’d used to.

 _Perspective._ Barry’s been guilty of some of Thawne’s thinking after all, it seems. Thinking his friendships with this version of Cisco and Caitlin matter less because of his plans. Thinking that this version of Cisco and Caitlin are somehow less ‘real’. How short a step is it from there to thinking that Cisco and Caitlin _themselves_ matter less? How short a step is it from there to thinking that _they’re_ not real? That they’re expendable?

What had Thawne said, before he’d murdered Cisco in the day that had never happened? _Forgive me… but to me, you've been dead for centuries._

“Promise?” Joe asks.

“Promise,” Barry mumbles, suddenly guilty and doubting.

“Okay,” Joe says. He, at least, sounds satisfied with the outcome of their conversation. “Seconds?”

He reaches for the pasta ladle sitting waiting in the pot at the center of the table. Obediently Barry passes his plate over. Spaghetti makes a good distraction, anyway.

The rest of dinner passes without any more fraught subjects being raised, and shortly after Barry heads up to his room to get some sleep. Joe heartily approves, unaware that Barry’s only planning to catch a few hours before heading back over to STAR Labs to work on the particle accelerator. Iris watches Barry go in a way that suggests she’s thinking about something. Barry’s not surprised, a few minutes later, when she knocks softly on his door.

“Hey,” she says. “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

“Sure.” He waves her in and closes the door. She sinks into the beanbag. Barry perches awkwardly on his desk chair.

“So,” Iris says. “Uh. ‘Caitlin’?”

“Oh God,” Barry sighs. This, at least, is ethically solid ground. He can be sincere in assuring Iris that “She’s just a friend.”

“Ah. Right.” Iris’ smile becomes warmer. Barry just has time to feel an oddly tense flutter of hope before Iris says, “Okay. Good. I didn’t _think_ you’d keep something like that a secret from me. I know the coma changed things, but – ”

“Oh, hey, no,” Barry says quickly. “Not that kind of things. Of course not. I’d tell you if I were seeing someone.”

“You’d better.” Iris’ smile becomes a laugh. “I don’t have an excellent shovel talk prepared for nothing.”

“Prepared? Already?” Barry feels his eyes widening. “Uh, Iris – ”

“Just in case,” she says. “It’s the big sister’s duty, after all.”

Barry tries to laugh. It doesn’t quite work, and for a moment the silence is strained.

Then Iris clears her throat. “I also wanted to ask if you wanted to come by Jitters tomorrow. In the afternoon?”

“Oh, uh, sure,” Barry flounders.

“It’s Tuesday,” Iris explains unhelpfully.

Barry nods, trying to look like he understands the significance of this. “And on Tuesdays…”

“Tuesdays are Eddie’s day to get coffee for the bullpen,” Iris explains. “I, uh. I’d like you two to meet.”

 _Oh._ A dozen painful memories run through Barry’s mind at this reminder. Hastily he dons his best smile. It’s easier than he remembers it being. “I’d, uh, I’d love to meet him.” Something like genuine amusement bubbles up out of him. “Hey, I guess _I_ should get a shovel talk ready, huh?”

Barry expects Iris to joke back, but to his surprise, she blushes. It’s hard to see against her dark skin, which makes it even more striking. “Whoa, Iris – how serious _are_ you with this guy?” Barry racks his brain frantically. Eddie had proposed, yes, he remembers that – but only just before Barry had run back in time. Nine months from ‘now’. As far as Barry recalls, Eddie and Iris had been more casual in the immediate post-coma months.

Not anymore, apparently. Iris’ blush only darkens, and she says, “Very. I’m sorry, I know it’s – I didn’t want to tell you quite how much. You had enough to deal with. But it’s – ” she lowers her voice. “Now that you’re awake, we’re talking about moving in together.”

 _This is moving much faster than I remember._ Then Iris’ exact phrasing catches up with Barry. “You weren’t – did you hold back because I was in the coma?”

“I didn’t want to leave Dad alone. He was worried about you. We both were!” Iris’ concern is genuine. “And – well – Eddie’s Dad’s partner. That’s going to be awkward, too. We didn’t want to tell him about our relationship unless we were really sure we were in it for the long haul.”

“And you are?” Barry swallows. “Sure?”

Iris’ smile turns fond. She looks away, caught for a moment in a memory only she can see. There’s no mistaking the expression on her face. She’s in love.

“Pretty sure,” she admits. She glances back up at Barry. “Is that – I know it must be weird for you – ”

“No,” Barry says quickly. Too quickly. He shakes his head. Admits, “Okay, yeah, a little weird. From my point of view it’s – it’s kind of fast.” _Even with a whole year to get used to it._

Though Barry would be lying if he said he’d gotten used to the prospect of Iris and Eddie getting married the first time. To be frank, he hadn’t even _tried_ to get used to it. It had happened just as the plan to save Barry’s mother had kicked into high gear, had started to seem as if it could really happen, and at that point... Barry hadn’t had the focus to spare for anything else. And when the thoughts had intruded anyway, Barry had comforted himself with the thought that, by rewriting the past fifteen years, he was essentially getting another chance with Iris.

 _Perspective,_ Barry hears Thawne saying again. Even if the timeline resetting changes everything, this still matters. This Iris still matters, for as long as she might exist. Her feelings still matter. Her love for Eddie, for Barry, for Joe. The job applications that Barry had helped her send. The advice she’d given him at Jitters, the morning after he’d confronted Thawne for the first time. They all still matter.

Moved by a sudden impulse, Barry gets up from the chair and goes over to the beanbag, leaning over to hug Iris. Says, “If you’re happy, then I’m happy.”

Barry hears the ring of truth in his own voice, and hugs Iris tighter. This may be all he can give her. Her days may be numbered. After the reset, who knows who she’ll be? Who can say if she’ll even ever meet Eddie Thawne? But for this brief slice of time, however long it lasts – Barry is happy for her.

Iris hugs him back, eyes suspiciously bright. “Thank you,” she says. She pulls away, clears her throat. Gets to her feet. “So. Tomorrow. It’s a plan, then.”

“Yeah,” Barry agrees.

She smiles again. It’s uncomplicatedly happy, and Barry stares at it, half envious and half wistful. He’s never made her smile like that. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen her smile like that for anything.

For that matter… has _he_ ever smiled like that? He can’t ask Iris. Not now. And there’s no one else who would know.

“Tomorrow then,” Iris says.

“Tomorrow,” Barry agrees. He watches her go. It’s not as hard as he would have thought.

It occurs to Barry to wonder, for the first time, who he would be, in a timeline where he’d never fallen in love with her.

* * *

As much as Barry hates to admit it, he and Thawne make a good team. Their work on the particle accelerator proceeds rapidly. Gideon’s projections show them as well ahead of the schedule Thawne had been working to individually. If they keep this pace, they’ll be online by early spring.

Their periodic raids of other labs, too, go smoothly. Barry’s on high alert the first few times, expecting Thawne to go off-script and try to commit bloody murder the second Barry’s back is turned. But that’s just Barry’s own fear and paranoia talking, as he’s eventually forced to admit. Thawne may be a murderer, but there’s a cold calculation underneath every action that serves as self-restraint.

Maybe the fifteen years spent living as Dr. Wells have taught Thawne something. The man who, furious at being denied Barry’s death, had lashed out against an innocent woman, had in Barry’s first timeline successfully masqueraded as someone who could be patient with and even kind to a confused young twenty-something learning to control powers he didn’t understand. Barry really shouldn’t be surprised that that same patience can be applied to restraining the urge to unnecessary violence.

It’s not as if there’s never any opportunities. They have their close calls. Moments where a quick kill would render someone far more effectively neutralized than the non-lethal methods Barry insists upon. Times when it would be easier to kidnap or threaten or blackmail to get the information or technology they need. And always, when these situations arise, there’s a moment where Barry feels Thawne’s gaze – on the back of his neck, or out of the corner of his eye, or straight-on unflinching – like a challenge. Like Thawne is waiting to see what Barry is going to do.

Barry thinks at first that Thawne is waiting to see if Barry will change his mind. If Barry will give Thawne permission to lash out. In retrospect, that’s a supremely foolish thought – when has Thawne ever needed Barry’s _permission?_ – but Barry persists in it, until a nighttime raid on Mercury Labs in mid-November opens his eyes.

They’ve gone in with much less of a plan than usual. Gideon has been tracking odd energy spikes coming from the Mercury Labs building that she says _should_ be indicative of some promising tachyonic research, but neither she nor Thawne can match up the readings they’re getting to any particular piece of technology that should exist at this point in the timeline. That’s worrying, especially given the way time is already flexing due to the strain put on it by the two out-of-sync speedsters. Thawne and Barry raid Mercury Labs more to find out what’s going on than to commit outright theft.

Because they don’t know what they’re looking for, they can’t rely on the simple in-and-out techniques that have served them so well to date. They have to search. That means more time in the building and more guards to evade. They start by knocking out the guards at the security desk, so they don’t have to dodge cameras the whole way. Barry could do it, but Thawne’s connection to the speed force has a bad tendency to flake out at the worst possible time, and the last thing they need is for Mercury Labs to get a recording of Dr. Harrison Wells mysteriously appearing in their facility late at night. So they clear out the security desk and disable the cameras from there, then start to search the building.

“This would go faster if we split up,” Thawne observes dryly, after the third floor is checked and pronounced clear of mysterious energy-generating phenomenae.

“Good plan,” Barry says cheerfully. “When your connection craps out and you fall flat on your face because you can’t even stand without it, just call me. Oh, wait, you won’t be able to do that either.” When Thawne’s connection to the speed force goes out, it goes out utterly, as they’ve found already to their mutual chagrin. He can’t even use the speed force to call Barry for assistance. Not a dealbreaker in STAR Labs at night. No one else is around, and after the time Barry had come back to the Time Vault after repairing another section of the particle accelerator to find Thawne sprawled on the floor, they’d made a habit of checking in with each other regularly over the intercoms when they aren’t in the same position. But in Mercury Labs it’s another story. Since, for obvious reasons, they don’t bring either their cell phones or STAR Labs proprietary comms along on these nightly raids, a failed connection would leave Thawne stranded like a landed fish for anyone to find.

Thawne makes a face, but sighs. Barry hides his smirk. It’s always nice to win an argument against Thawne, and doing so without having to resort to _you’re-a-murderer-and-I-trust-you-as-far-as-I-can’t-throw-you_ is an added bonus.

They search four more floors with no luck, and said luck deserts them entirely on the eight floor, when they come around a corner and run smack into a security guard neither of them had heard coming.

“What the – _freeze!”_ the man shouts, hand going for his radio.

Time slows as both Barry and Thawne drop automatically into the speed force. Barry’s first instinct is to lunge at the guard. Seize his radio, disable the man, shove him in a closet. That will cost them precious time as they tie the man up and gag him before resuming their search – Barry’s blurred his face automatically, he hopes Thawne has done the same, he hopes they were fast enough at it, did the man catch a glimpse? – but they can figure something else out later, first they have to stop the man calling for help –

Thawne’s got a gun.

Barry’s eyes widen. _Where did he get that?_ Barry would have sworn that neither of them were armed, but – the guards they’d taken out downstairs, in the room with the monitors for the security cameras, they’d been armed, hadn’t they – had they both had their guns when Barry had finished trussing them up? Or had one of their holsters been empty? Too late to check now, Barry should have been more careful at the time, but right now there’s a hapless guard whose mouth is still opening to cry out and the Reverse Flash holding up a gun, and Barry is trying to switch directions mid-lunge but –

Thawne shoots.

“Stop!” Barry shouts. He reaches out instinctively – slow, too slow, even now with a year of training he’s still slower than Thawne – the bullet flies past his outstretched fingers by a comfortable margin. The thought slides through Barry’s mind: _Thawne knows how fast I am. He knows how to kill so I can’t stop him._

Time drops back into its normal speed. Just in time for Barry to watch the bullet catch the hapless security guard. In the leg.

In the _leg_?

Barry stares at the guard writhing in pain on the ground, then at Thawne. “You – you – ”

“I keep my promises,” Thawne says curtly, tucking the gun away again. He waves at the downed man. “Go on.”

“Go _on_?”

Barry can’t tell, with the red glow Thawne’s adopted to conceal his eyes, but he thinks Thawne is looking at him in surprise. “Interrogate him. Find out what we need to know.”

“I’m not – Jesus!” Barry _does_ go over to the security guard, but only to haul the man up against the wall where he can support himself a little more comfortably, and yank a makeshift tourniquet around the man’s knee. Barry’s no doctor but he knows a through-and-through when he sees one, and the flow of blood from the wound is reassuringly sluggish. “You’ll be okay,” he says to the guard, as comfortingly as he can manage through his own voice-disguising vibration. “Just keep pressure on it. EMTs will be here soon.”

That attended to, Barry turns around and flashes back to Thawne’s side, barely registering the way the man is staring at him. He grabs his nemesis’ arm and practically hauls the other speedster around a corner.

“What was that?” Barry hisses as soon as they’re alone. The sound of the guard’s pained whimper hangs in the air, stretching, as time slows around them again.

“What was what?” Thawne shrugs stiffly. “You said _no killing._ He’s alive. Don’t tell me you’re going to complain – ”

“Not that.” Barry dismisses the leg shot with an angry motion of one hand. Mired in the speed force as they are, the gesture is more forceful than he intends, and lightning crackles in its wake. It hangs between them for a moment before dispersing, throwing odd shadows against their faces until it fades. “The part where you expected me to interrogate him.”

“The guard might know where any new high-security labs are,” Thawne says in a tone of patient reason. “Whatever we’re looking for, it’s probably well guarded.”

“We’re speedsters. We search quickly. There’s no need to spend time on an interrogation. Particularly when the guy’s already in pain!”

The red glow has faded from Thawne’s eyes, or else it’s simply less effective as a means of disguise when time is slowed this far around them. Either way, Barry can see the confusion clearly reflected in those eyes, in the way the corners of his lips stretch out.

Thawne says, “I would have thought that would appeal to _you_.”

Barry is startled enough to take a step back. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says, and means it.

Thawne stares at Barry a moment longer. Then he turns away and shoots down the corridor. Barry stares after him in confusion, then starts to run himself, swearing and reaching out into the speed force to track his nemesis.

Barry catches up with Thawne in a lab that he would have sworn blind hadn’t been here the last time they’d raided Mercury Labs. Given Mercury’s position as the other – with STAR Labs technically defunct, the only – bleeding-edge science and technology firm in Central City, he and Thawne have been here a lot, and Barry’s actually pretty familiar with the layout. This lab shouldn’t exist. Standing within it, Barry can see the cleverness of its design, the way the small cube of space has been tucked between conference rooms and washrooms and an artfully arranged nook with potted plants that all give the impression of being larger than they are, to conceal the ‘missing’ space that has been given over to this tiny, hidden lab.

There’s a half-assembled prototype on the only workbench. Next to it, a large display scrolls placidly through nightly build and unit tests for the software that must be running on the thing. Thawne is staring at it as if he’s not even seeing it, expression a complex mix of surprise, disquiet, and outright confusion.

Barry stops just inside the half-open door – concealed behind a bookcase, of course; though is it still a cliché if it works? – and then comes the rest of the way into the lab slowly, making sure his footfalls are audible.

“What was that?” Barry asks again. He asks it more slowly, this time. More quietly. It sounds like a different question. Maybe that’s because it is.

“I thought you’d want to interrogate that guard,” Thawne says. “Why didn’t you want to interrogate him?”

“What made you think I would?” Barry parries, doing his best to keep his voice free of the accusation that wants to slip out.

Thawne tips his head slightly to one side. He’s still not looking at Barry. “ _You_ thought I would kill him.”

“Yes.”

“Would you think I would interrogate him?”

“Yes.”

“Even though he’s in pain?”

Barry finds a humorless smile somewhere. There’s no better way to express it other than to simply quote Thawne right back to himself: “I would have thought that would appeal to you.”

“Yes…” Thawne shakes his head; after a moment, Barry decides that the _yes_ isn’t agreement that it would appeal to Thawne, but agreement that Barry would have thought that.

“You didn’t do it,” Barry offers, when the silence stretches out and it doesn’t look like Thawne is going to speak again.

“Neither did you,” Thawne says.

“Why did you think I would?”

“For the same reason you thought _I_ would.”

That doesn’t make any sense. Barry wants to say so. Wants to say: _you’re the murderer, not me; you’re the one who kidnaps and steals – well – okay, I guess I steal now too – but that’s not the point. You’re the one with_ perspective _. You’re the one who thinks we’re all already dead, and you can do whatever you want with us. You’re the one who thinks we’re all toys for your amusement._

Thawne’s talking again. “A while ago, when we first forged our little arrangement, you said something to me. Something very interesting. I’ve thought of it often since then. You said, _whatever kind of hero I am, it’s the kind I learned to be from you._ ”

“I remember,” Barry admits.

“Well.” Thawne laughs now. It’s the laugh Barry is most used to hearing from his nemesis: cruel, humorless, with something unhinged that frightens. “I thought it was very odd that you should have said that, Barry Allen, very odd indeed. Because you see, I think of the reverse as being true.” Now he’s turning his head; now he’s looking at Barry dead-on, gazes locked and challenging. “Whatever kind of villain I am – it’s the kind I learned to be from you.”

Barry can’t stop himself from stepping back. It’s not just the laughter that’s frightening. It’s the intensity, the force of Thawne’s gaze, the raw truth of what he’s saying that unnerves Barry. “I – ”

“You are a mystery,” Thawne interrupts. “I look at you now, and I see no hint of the man you are to become. No sign of the monster that lurks beneath your skin. No trace of the man I hate.”

“I’m – ” _not a monster_ , Barry wants to say. _You’re the monster._ The words don’t come out.

Thawne turns back to the prototype. He reaches into its midst and twists something, then yanks. A small ampule filled with blue-tinged liquid comes away in his hands. The scrolling code on the screen stops, and an error message flashes red.

“It’s no good without its power source,” Thawne says conversationally, as an aside. He bounces the ampule in his hand. “Future tech. Wonder where they got it. They can’t have built it themselves. Removing it should shut the project down for good.” Thawne tucks it carefully into a small belt pocket, then turns and walks towards Barry. Or towards the door. Barry can’t say which. Can’t make his legs move enough to step aside, with the way Thawne is looking at him.

Thawne stops scant inches from Barry. He’s shorter, but the menace he projects makes him seem to loom. The way he looks at Barry says: _you are the scum of the Earth_. The way he smirks adds the codicil: _and I should know._

“Are you in there, Flash?” Thawne asks. “Something of you must be. The seeds of who you will become, even as you pretend on the surface to be this naïve earnest _child_.”

“Thawne,” Barry says carefully. “It’s me. It’s just me.”

Thawne ignores this. He’s still looking at Barry, but he’s speaking to something – someone – only he sees. He says softly, “Just to be clear: Nothing is forgiven. There will be a reckoning. One day you will pay for what you’ve done.”

Thawne walks past Barry then. Their shoulders knock together. Barry is pushed aside, gasping from the force of the blow, as well as from the lightning shock of its contact. It’s mild compared to the shocks delivered by two speedsters shoving at each other with full open connections to the speed force, but it’s more than enough to tell Barry exactly how furious Thawne is.

Thawne vanishes in a blur of his red lightning. Out of the hidden lab, then – Barry strains his senses – out of Mercury Labs altogether. Barry loses awareness of Thawne after that, unable to track him further through the Speed Force. But Thawne probably goes either to STAR Labs or back to his house. Barry could check those places. Could check some other places. Could ask Gideon. Could find Thawne, probably, if he really wanted to.

Barry should. He should corner Thawne and demand to know exactly what Thawne means. If this is how Thawne really thinks of Barry’s future self, the one Thawne had first met, then Barry has let Thawne evade his questions on that topic long enough.

But Barry finds himself just standing there, shaken, in the hidden room in Mercury Labs. And when he does finally move, it’s to go home himself. He lies in the middle of his bed underneath a camera that is probably watching his every breath, and stares dreamlessly at the ceiling until dawn comes.


	6. Chapter 6

Barry comes awake to a room filled with the harsh grey light of dawn on an overcast day. His limbs are weighted down with a curious kind of nonphysical fatigue, but his mind is running at super-speed. He replays all of last night’s conversation with Thawne in the time it takes for him to sit up.

_Are you in there, Flash? Something of you must be. The seeds of who you will become._

_Whatever kind of villain I am, it’s the kind I learned to be from you._

Barry is missing something. Something important.

He knows that Thawne had not come directly from his home time back to 2000. Had not originally left his home time with the intention of murdering Barry. Had, in fact, been something of a fan of the Flash. Until they’d actually met.

After that Barry’s knowledge gets decidedly fuzzy. He knows that records of the Flash become fragmentary, to the point where Thawne had had to hunt for some time (hah) before locating the Flash in the early 21st century. Sometime in the 2020s, Barry thinks, they’d originally met. Some time after that, Thawne had started calling himself the Reverse Flash. Started turning away from scientific and personal curiosity and into villainy. Only after several public clashes with his nemesis – clashes mentioned, albeit with a frustrating lack of detail, in the newspaper dated April 25 – had Thawne traveled back in time to the year 2000. With which devastating results Barry knows far too well.

Those results have occupied Barry’s thoughts. The death of his mother and the ensuing changes in Barry’s life have been all Barry has cared about. Maybe that isn’t selfish – the magnitude of Thawne’s crimes, and their impact on Barry, certainly justify Barry’s focus – but Barry is realizing now how short-sighted that is. He hadn’t ever thought about the _why_ of Thawne’s crimes. Wouldn’t have thought the _why_ matters, if he had. Would never have even considered that there might be a _why_ worth knowing about. There could be no justification, so why care for a paltry explanation?

 _Foolish._ What had Thawne carved above the particle accelerator? What might be said to have been his last piece of advice to Barry, before Barry had set off for his own past and set all of this in motion? _Knowledge is power._

Barry may not trust Thawne, but he is forced by circumstances to rely on Thawne. That means he needs to _understand_ Thawne. Or at least – know him.

That in mind, Barry discards last night’s plan of staying away from STAR Labs for a few days. He barely waits long enough to grab a shower and some breakfast. Only after coming downstairs and ascertaining that Joe and Iris have both left for early shifts does he relent and let his superspeed whisk him through these practicalities. He also allows himself a brief detour. They had a late night last night, and coffee is a necessity.

Once at STAR Labs, Barry heads straight for the Time Vault. It’s become his secret lair as much as Thawne’s these days, a fact which amuses him in his lighter moments. In his darker moments he’s more prone to worrying about what it says about him. After all, if Cisco and Caitlin ever find out about this… Thawne is no longer the only one lying to them with his every simple breath in their presence. Barry may not have Thawne’s body count, but he can’t say for sure if that would make a difference to them in the end.

_Whatever kind of villain I am…_

Barry doesn’t bother to knock. There are only two people who can enter this room, and he doesn’t need to ask Gideon to know that Thawne is already inside.

“Hey,” Barry says, entering.

Thawne doesn’t answer. He’s half-hunched over the vault’s lone terminal, staring at it. He looks angry – or, no – he looks like he _wants_ to be angry, but all he’s actually managing is a tired kind of bitterness. Between the rumpled hair, discarded glasses, and the fact that he’s still wearing the clothing from the raid on Mercury Labs, Barry would bet money that Thawne hasn’t slept. He’s even sitting down. Not in the wheelchair, true. But Thawne seizes every opportunity of standing on his own two feet. He’s never outright said he hates the times when he has to pretend to be wheelchair-bound – nor that he hates worse the times when he’s genuinely unable to walk – but it’s obvious in the way he takes every chance to stand. The way he paces when he thinks. The way he lets his fingers fly over every console when there’s no one else to see him but Barry.

Barry had seen it in Thawne’s eyes, when Thawne had asked him, that first night, how running had felt. Hunger. Barry can’t say he wouldn’t feel the same, in Thawne’s position. He’s never done drugs. But the joy of the speed force, the freedom of running faster than unenhanced legs could ever carry him, even the simple pleasure of being able to walk across the room… To lose that would be torture. No matter how much Thawne deserves it, it’s still cruel and unusual, and Barry would fix it if he could.

Right now Barry has more immediate problems. Such as the fact that, for the first time in their mutual acquaintance, Thawne hasn’t reacted to Barry entering his space.

“Thawne?” Barry tries, taking another few steps into the room. After a moment, he tries, hesitantly: “Eobard?”

Thawne’s head comes up. Barry almost feels startled himself.

“Barry,” Thawne says blankly. Then he pushes himself up, out of the chair, and scrubs a hand briskly through his hair. “Are you – what time is it?”

“Eight A.M.,” Barry says carefully. He’d come here expecting a continuation of last night’s argument, or – whatever they’d had, last night. He hadn’t expected a Thawne who looks more like an exhausted Dr. Wells.

“I lost track of time,” Thawne says vaguely.

Barry nods. “Would you like some coffee?” He holds up the cup from Jitters. Originally he’d intended as a peace offering; now Barry thinks the other speedster might need it to avoid falling flat on his face for a far more basic reason than a damaged connection to the speed force.

“Thanks,” Thawne says. Which just worries Barry even more.

“Are Caitlin and Cisco coming by today?”

“No. I left them messages. Told them to take the day off.”

“Okay,” Barry says. He wonders if he dares to press Thawne any further. He’s starting to doubt his own resolution. Maybe it would be better to let it ride for a little while longer. Make some solid progress on the particle accelerator. Reestablish their equilibrium.

Barry should always have known how fragile the balance between them is. They’ve worked so well together, over the past few weeks, that he’d forgotten. Allowed himself to be lulled into a false sense of security. Maybe Barry hasn’t made the mistake he’d been so afraid of, forgetting that the other man is Eobard Thawne and not Harrison Wells, but he’s made a mistake nearly as bad. He’d forgotten that the other man isn’t actually his friend or his mentor. Theirs is an uneasy alliance of rivals, at best.

That in mind, Barry reaches for the toolkit he’s assembled over the past months of part-time particle accelerator repair work. “I’ll get started on the cortex wiring, then. May as well take advantage of the time.”

“Don’t.” Thawne drains the coffee and tosses the cup at Barry. Barry doesn’t bother to flinch – and what does _that_ say about them, how comfortable they’ve become? – just lets the empty coffee cup sail past his shoulder and land in the wastebin by the door.

“What?”

“I said don’t.” Thawne scrubs his hands over his face again, then sits back down in his chair in a way that strongly suggests he’d prefer to simply collapse.

Barry goes from mildly confused straight to high alert in about point five seconds. “What’s wrong?”

“We don’t have time to repair the particle accelerator.” Thawne gestures to the main screen; in place of the usual newspaper, it’s showing a series of dot-and-bar graphs, which seem to be tracking project status and completion. “We were on track for early spring. I tried to speed that up, but even with my most generous estimates – if we tell Cisco and Caitlin what we’re doing, pull in a number of other key personnel from the old STAR Labs who might not spit in my face, work around the clock – we still won’t finish before Christmas.”

Barry certainly wants to get this done as soon as possible. But: “Last night you didn’t seem to have any problem with that timeline.”

“Last night I didn’t know how unstable this timeline _is._ ” Thawne leans over and taps another set of inputs into the keyboard. The schedule dissolves, replaced with a different set of charts and graphs.

“These are the energy spikes Gideon’s been recording,” Barry says. The reason they’d raided Mercury Labs last night. To try and find the source. His mind runs through the possible interpretations and zeroes in on the most likely complication. “The future tech they had – what is it?”

“I told you, it’s just a power source. The problem isn’t what it _is_. The problem is where it’s from. Gideon found the patent filing from 2133.”

“So it’s from the future. We knew that.” Barry tries to find some patience, fails, and settles for keeping his rising unease and general annoyance with Thawne’s pontificating in balance. “What’s the problem? They stole it from you?”

“No.”

“Then how – ”

Thawne points to one of the charts. “These aren’t just energy spikes,” he says. “They’re breaches. Small rips in the fabric of space-time.”

Barry’s annoyance suddenly finds itself relegated to unimportance, while his unease surges forward to take center stage. “How bad is that?”

“The rips themselves are bad enough; most of them are small enough that they won’t be noticed except by highly sensitive sensors, but in some cases – ” he points to several peaks – “they’re large enough to permit passage. The power source Mercury Labs was using probably fell through one of them.”

“When you say _passage_ – human-sized?”

“Not at their current strength.” The grim tone to Thawne’s voice prevents any relief Barry might feel at this faint silver lining. “But it’s only a matter of time, because the rips aren’t even the real problem. They themselves are a side effect of the strong force for equilibrium, which when triggered by a major violation of causality – specifically a compactly generated Couchy horizon which contains one or more incomplete closed-null geodesics – ”

“Okay, pretend I’m _not_ a super-experienced genius scientist from the future who’s had decades to master both the speed force and time travel,” Barry interrupts.

Thawne starts to say something, then stops. “Super-experienced genius scientist,” he says after a moment, tonelessly.

“What?” Barry covers his sudden discomfort by crossing his arms and scowling. “It’s how you think of yourself, isn’t it?”

“I wasn’t under the impression you shared that opinion.”

“You understand this. I don’t. I suppose it’s all relative.” Barry untangles one hand long enough to wave at the graph. “Explain, please, or shut up so Gideon can do it for you.”

Thawne is still looking at Barry. Barry looks back, refusing to admit that the scrutiny bothers him.

“Changes in the timeline are like earthquakes,” Thawne says finally. “There’s an epicenter, and then there’s shocks that ripple outwards from it. All of the changes are not felt at once. The more major the changes, the more rapidly they propagate. Minor adjustments can take longer.”

“When you say they ripple outwards – ”

“I mean up and down the timeline, yes.”

“So the change I made, or my future self made, in 2000. That was an epicenter?”

“Yes. The major changes it caused have already propagated.”

“The deletion of the Barry Allen who’s supposed to be here.”

“And the newspaper showing that there’s no Flash in 2024. Such large sweeping changes are largely accounted for. But _minor_ changes are still occurring. That’s what these data are telling us.” Thawne frowns at the graph. Barry looks with him, equally determined not to show that the relief from his scrutiny is welcome. “In theory each of these spikes should correlate with a specific measurable divergence… Gideon?”

“Cross-referencing,” Gideon says. “…I have identified four events I believe, with greater than 90 per cent probability, to be associated with observed data.”

“Let’s have them,” Thawne says.

“October 31, 2005. The winners of the Central City fifth district junior high science fair are announced.” A photograph appears on the screen. Three junior high schoolers smile at the cameras, holding trophies of various sizes. None of them are Barry.

“I won second place,” Barry says, looking at the unfamiliar face of the dark-skinned girl now holding the middle trophy.

“I remember,” Thawne says. “But not anymore.”

Gideon continues. “April 7, 2006. The Central City Cheetahs, a recreational soccer league, wins a divisional championship match against the visiting Keystone City Knights.”

“No, we lost,” Barry says. “I collided with one of the Knights, we both went down, had to be taken to the hospital – the game was delayed for an hour, Keystone didn’t have any substitutes, and finally they just declared the game over and Keystone was ahead at the time, so they won.”

“There are no records of such an incident,” Gideon demurs. “Nor are there any records that match the hospitalization you recall.”

“What’s happening?” Instinctively, Barry appeals to Thawne for answers. “Why are all of these things changing?”

“Your deletion is starting to echo,” Thawne says. “Radiating outward from 2000.”

Barry feels the blood drain from his face. “What will happen when it gets here? To 2015?”

Thawne doesn’t answer immediately. He turns back to the graph and zooms it in, tracking the spikes against time, their rate of progression.

“Thawne. What – ”

“I don’t know,” Thawne snaps. “Under normal circumstances, I’d say you’d be deleted too. But you’re not _you_. You were in the speed force when the deletion occurred, you were protected. And now you’re here. Woven into the timeline.” Thawne pulls off his glasses, rubbing at the bridge of his nose as if it aches. “It’s conceivable that your presence here will act as a breakwater for further changes in the timeline. That you will anchor your own existence, and the deletion will propagate no further.”

“How likely is that?” When Thawne doesn’t answer, Barry raises his voice. “Gideon?”

“I cannot say,” the AI replies. She somehow manages to sound regretful. “It is an unusual situation.”

“But fixing the timeline would reverse it, right?” Barry tries not to sound desperate, but, well – “We go back to the year 2000, we put the timeline right, and I’m okay. Right?”

“The most recent spike Gideon tracked is only two years ago,” Thawne says quietly. “Assuming it continues its current rate of progression, we’ll be experiencing its effects directly in a week, perhaps two. It will take longer than that to finish rebuilding the particle accelerator. Even if we work on nothing else.”

Barry makes himself nod. Then he just stands there. He can’t think of anything else to say or do.

This is shock, he realizes distantly. Mental shock, if there is such a thing. There must be. He’s feeling it now.

“Barry,” Thawne is saying insistently.

Slowly Barry looks up.

Thawne has pushed himself to his feet again, though he still looks as if he’d fall down if he tried to move faster than a snail’s pace. He’s been up all night, of course. Researching this. Proving that all of his dreams are about to come true. The reckoning he’d promised only last night – it’s here.

How sweet Thawne must be finding the irony. Thawne’s been convinced from the start that it had been Barry’s future self, the Flash he hates so, who had altered the timeline back in 2000. Barry isn’t so confident that he himself hadn’t made some fatal error he doesn’t even realize, but Thawne has never seemed to doubt it. And whatever that change had been, whether error or deliberate, it’s going to cost Barry everything. Not just his life but his accomplishments, his existence, even the memories of him in others’ minds. If there is such a thing as a fate worse than death, erasure must surely be it. No one will remember Barry Allen. Not even as a minor line in a registry: he was born, he lived, he died. No one will mourn him. No one will even know he existed.

“You win,” Barry says to Thawne.

“No.” Thawne takes a step closer, grabs Barry by the shoulder. Barry doesn’t bother to break the hold. What does he have to be afraid of, after all? Thawne won’t hurt him now. Not when an even more poetic justice is waiting to take Barry.

But then Thawne says, “There’s another way.”

He turns back to the console. Fiddles with it more. Barry watches blankly as the charts and graphs all vanish. In their place a schematic appears. Barry doesn’t recognize the device it describes, though he does recognize, in the center of the schematic, the futuristic power supply they’d stolen from Mercury Labs last night.

“This is a device that will let two speedsters share a connection to the speed force,” Thawne says. “Barry, you can’t run fast enough by yourself to travel back in time to 2000. And _I_ can’t maintain a stable enough connection to the speed force to make the journey. But together we can do it. My speed and your connection can get us there.” He gestures to the device. “That’s what this will let us do. I can piggy-back on your connection. Together we can go.”

Barry stares at the schematics. Stares at Thawne. “If you had this all along, then why – ” Barry breaks off, frowns, and goes back to looking at the schematics. “The power supply.” He reaches out as if to touch it, then remembers at the last minute that it’s a projection and lets his hand drop. “Until we stole the supply from Mercury Labs last night, there was nothing that could power it.”

“No. But now that we have it – ”

“There’s nothing else we need?”

Thawne’s already shaking his head. “The rest of it can be built with 2014 technology,” he says. “It’ll be a little cruder, but it will work well enough.”

Something is still bothering Barry. It takes him a moment to hunt it down. Thawne is still watching Barry with an odd mixed expression on his face, but doesn’t speak until Barry has it.

“What do you care?”

Thawne doesn’t react visibly, beyond pressing his lips together in apparent annoyance.

That makes Barry angry. He uncrosses his arms, not caring that his hands are clenched into fists at his side, and steps forward. “I’m your enemy, right? You hate me. What did you say? _There will be a reckoning?_ Well, congratulations! Here it is! You could just leave me to my fate.”

“Weren’t you listening to anything I said to you last night? You’re not him.”

“I’m going to become him! Aren’t I?”

“So what? I should kill you now and save myself the trouble?”

“Isn’t that why you went back to 2000 in the first place?” Barry draws in a ragged breath, almost shaking – with anger, with fear, with sheer adrenaline. He’s closer to Thawne than he remembers being. Thawne is standing again, though he still looks like he’s not too far away from collapse.

Maybe it’s the proximity. Maybe it’s the fact that Thawne hasn’t slept; has obviously been working on this problem all night. Maybe Thawne is afraid, too. Barry’s certainly never been able to see through Thawne’s mask before, so _something_ has to be different. But whatever the cause, Barry spots it, this time. The briefest flash of blank disbelief, of astonished rejection, before Thawne’s armor of casual disdain slams back into place.

Barry makes himself take a measured step back. “Thawne?”

Thawne turns back to his schematic. Sits down again, and very nearly manages to make it seem as if he’d only done so in order to better utilize the console. “What?”

“Why did you go back to the year 2000?”

“You said it, Barry,” Thawne says without looking up. “You know why.”

“I know what you told me. In my original timeline.”

“Well, there you have it.” There’s a faintly mocking edge in Thawne’s voice. Barry’s heard it directed at him before, only a few times, but still too many. He can’t shake the conviction that this time Thawne’s directing it at himself.

“You told me everything that happened in 2000.” Thawne isn’t watching Barry, is making it very clear that he’s paying no attention to Barry whatsoever, so Barry gives in to the urge to close his eyes, the better to call forth the memory. “You told me about arriving. You told me about fighting my future self. You told me about killing my mother.”

Thawne’s exhale isn’t quite a sigh; more like something forced, air hitting between clenched teeth.

“You told me all the details. Everything I’d need to know in order to intervene. You gave me a literal play-by-play of everything that happened from the moment you got to 2000 to the moment you left my house and tried to return home. When you discovered you were trapped.”

“I’ve got a good memory,” Thawne says shortly. “And it’s not a sequence of events I’m likely to forget.”

“Yes, but you never told me – ” Barry has to stop for a moment to shake his head at himself. If the subject matter weren’t so grim, he’d even laugh. How is Barry only just noticing this now? With all the time he’d spent going over every word of Thawne’s confession, worrying at every part of it, digging into it for meaning, for answers, for the solution to that ever-present mystery _why_ –

Barry’s Thawne had dodged him. He can see it now. Subtly. Effectively. Withholding the answer to the one question Barry had never asked. Because Barry had always taken it for granted.

“Why did you go back in time?” Barry asks now. “Why did you travel to 2000?”

“I didn’t, Barry.” Thawne stops pretending to use the console. He lets his hands still over the keys and sighs. “You did. I just came along for the ride.”

“You didn’t cook this schematic up yesterday.” Barry should have realized it. When he’d asked about building this with 2014 technology, and Thawne had said: _it’ll be a little cruder, but it will work._ Cruder? Cruder than what? Than the schematic? If Thawne had developed this schematic last night, then he would have designed it with 2014 technology in mind from the start.

He hadn’t. Barry can see it now. The schematic is designed with 2024 technology.

“The Flash initiated the time-jump,” Thawne says. “I just followed him.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t know where he was going. I was afraid he was going to the future. To my time.”

“So you followed him. No – no.” Barry shakes his head, determined to get this right. “You piggy-backed on him. To make sure you came out in the same place?”

“It was the only way I _could_ follow him.” When Barry still looks blank, Thawne gestures impatiently. “I can’t travel through time on my own anymore, remember? That’s why I needed to invent this in the first place. That’s why I’ve been stuck here for the last fifteen years.”

“I thought – what?” Thawne may think all of this is perfectly clear, but Barry doesn’t understand any of it at all. “Your future self, the one I knew in 2015, he told me – ” Barry strains his memory. “You said that in traveling back in time, you’d lost your way home… lost your ability to harness the speed force.”

“Did I?” Thawne breathes. He doesn’t try to stand again, but he sits straighter, and stares at Barry. “Why would I…”

“Lie to me?” Barry finds a humorless laugh somewhere. “Uh, let’s think about that one.”

“That’s not a lie,” Thawne disagrees. “It’s just not the whole truth.”

“Well, there’s a lot of that going around,” Barry says. Any impulse to humor has entirely drained from him. “I asked you, the future you, why you hated me. Why we were enemies.”

“What did I tell you?”

“That it didn’t matter anymore.”

Thawne leans back a little and taps his fingers together, a tic that must not have all been part of the persona of Dr. Wells. “Tell me something, Barry. What was my plan?”

“I’m sorry?”

“My plan. To get back to my time.”

“You tricked me. You repaired the particle accelerator by yourself, turned it on before we made you, then escaped. You held Eddie hostage for a while – ”

“Eddie? Eddie Thawne?” Eobard’s eyes shoot up. “My own ancestor? What kind of a hostage would _he_ have been? If anything happened to him, I’d be erased from existence. Classic grandfather paradox. Well.” Thawne’s gaze unfocuses for a moment as he counts. “Great-great-great-grandfather paradox.”

“I don’t know,” Barry flounders. No one had ever thought to ask that question. They’d all been too worried about what Eobard might do to Eddie to consider what it would mean for Eobard if Eddie were harmed.

“Go on,” Thawne says intently.

“We rescued Eddie and imprisoned you.” _Or were allowed to think we had._ “You told me that colliding with the particle would give me enough energy to go back and save my mother.”

“And I?”

“We helped you finish your timeship. You were going to use the particle’s energy to power your trip home.”

“And you were going to _let_ me?” The incredulity in Thawne’s voice would be offensive in any other context.

“My collision with the particle would destabilize time and space. Locally, at first, but if left unchecked for too long it would spread. I had one minute and fifty-two seconds to save my mother and get back so that we could shut the whole thing down. I couldn’t delay to stop you, too. And I didn’t have the speed to travel to your time on my own.” _I still don’t_. “Once back in your time, I would have been safe from you forever.”

“And I from you,” Thawne says, still watching Barry with a disquieting mixture of skepticism and hope. “Not quite so foolish of myself as I was afraid, but still…”

“What?” Barry asks defensively.

Thawne spread his hands wide and smirks. This time its edge is decidedly self-mocking. “You’d be alive.”

“I beg your pardon?” Barry boggles.

“Barry, that plan you just shared with me is not the plan I had in mind when you woke up in STAR Labs two months ago.” Thawne pauses for a moment, as if considering whether to share the rest, then gives a little half-shrug and continues. “The original plan ends with your death.”

“My – _what_?” Barry takes an involuntary step back; it’s foolish, but his hind brain wants the extra space between them, in case this Thawne decides to finish what his future/past self had started.

“Oh, yes. I planned to be revenged upon you as well as merely to return home. And in the process to regain what you’d taken from me.”

“To regain – ” A sudden, dreadful suspicion blooms in Barry’s mind. He’s about to blurt it out when Eobard confirms it.

“My speed.”

“I stole your speed,” Barry whispers. It’s not a question. He doesn’t doubt it.

“You tried.” The look on Eobard’s face is dark. Barry’s seen it before. It presages murder. “We fought many times, you and I, but our skirmishes always ended in stalemate. Neither of us were fast enough to defeat the other. So you set about devising a way to slow me down.”

“Oh my God.” Barry tries to grapple with this, tries to comprehend how he could have done something like this. The horror of it swamps him. It’s not death, but in some ways it might as well be. To never again touch the speed force, to know what he’s capable of but to be prevented from ever accessing it, to –

“Did I know what I was doing?” Barry demands, sick.

“Oh, yes.”

“I did it on purpose?”

“With malice aforethought.”

“I regret to say that I assisted you in developing the technique,” Gideon adds. “I was still under your control at that time.”

“How did you end up with Eobard?” Barry asks. It’s not the most important question pressing them, not by a long shot, but it’s the first one Barry can form.

“Professor Thawne liberated me,” Gideon says.

“Stole, Gideon.” Thawne shakes his head. “The word is _stole_. Don’t think of me as some kind of hero. I had my own ends, and my hands weren’t exactly clean, even back then.”

“The information I possessed on the technique allowed us to partially reverse it,” Gideon says.

“It helped that you weren’t quite able to finish the job,” Thawne says. “But you, future you, had still achieved your primary end. With my connection to the speed force damaged, I couldn’t return to my own time. I was stranded in 2024. And I could no longer outrun you.”

“What – ” Barry has to stop to clear his throat. “What was I going to do to you?”

Thawne doesn’t answer.

“Gideon?” Barry tries.

“I’m sorry, Master Allen,” Gideon says. “That information is not in my database.”

Barry looks around almost blindly. There’s no other chair in this room, but Dr. Wells’ wheelchair is standing by the console, waiting for its owner to resume the charade. Barry gropes his way over to it and sits down in it. His knees feel weak, and far from being able to embrace the speed force right now, he can barely stand.

His future self had conceived of, researched, and then deployed a method for severing a speedster’s connection to the speed force. Not just in the course of setting a trap. Not just as part of a prison designed to hold a criminal. Permanently.

Barry can think of all the justifications. That Thawne, by his own admission, had done evil by that point. That taking his speed away would have prevented future evil. That, as a method of incapacitating and capturing him, it would have been superlatively effective. That it would have avoided any incidental casualties.

It doesn’t change the fact that his future self had deliberately maimed a man. Enemy or not, murderer or not –

“Thawne,” Barry starts. Then he stops to correct himself. “Eobard.”

Eobard meets his gaze. “Barry?”

“Why did you show me this?” Barry motions at the schematic still projected on the Time Vault’s main screen. “Why did you tell me any of this?”

Eobard doesn’t answer.

“I can understand why you’d continue researching the source of the energy spikes we’d observed. But the rest of it?” He pauses. Waits. “You didn’t have to tell me about – being deleted. You certainly didn’t have to tell me about a solution.”

Eobard still doesn’t speak.

“You have every reason to hate me,” Barry says. Makes himself say. _He killed my mother._ Two wrongs don’t make a right. As much as Barry still hates Eobard for Nora’s death, will always hate Eobard for that, it doesn’t blind him to the fact that what his future self had done had also been unforgiveable. “You could have kept your mouth shut and let me die.”

“Then how would I get back to my own time?” Eobard says.

Barry hesitates. That sounds reasonable. More than reasonable. Eobard wants to get back to his own time; that’s all he’s ever wanted.

 _Monomaniacal_ , Barry had called that quest once. He thinks he understands it better now. He thinks maybe it’s not so different after all from Barry’s own quest to save his mother.

And because he’s able at last to recognize that similarity – because he’s able, for the first time, to muster up something approaching empathy for Thawne – Barry sees the problem.

“If I’m deleted, it forces a paradox,” Barry says. “Right? No Barry means no Flash. No Flash means no Reverse. You never travel back to the past to meet me. You never end up trapped here.”

Barry’s watching Eobard closely. He sees when Eobard grows tense and wary.

“So what happens to you then? Do you get deleted, too?” Barry considers this, then shakes his head. He may not be an expert in time travel. But he’s an expert in figuring out how the strange and arcane rules of his new existence are going to screw him over today. “No, you get put back, don’t you? Time goes back into place. Like a rubber band snapping, I’ll bet. I blink out of existence and you blink back to your time. Just as if none of this has ever happened.”

Eobard stares at Barry. There’s something new in his face and bearing. Something that Barry’s just now realizing he’s never been there before. Respect.

Pride he’s seen. Approval. Encouragement, favor, confidence. But there had always been that hint of disparity between them. Eobard – whether as himself or as Dr. Wells – had always been speaking to Barry from some distance above him. Of years, of experience, of knowledge. Always there had been a gap.

Doubtless there is still a gap. But Eobard looks at Barry now as one looks at an equal.

And that gives Barry the rest of the puzzle.

“That’s why you wanted to kill me in the year 2000.” He nods slowly. What had Eobard said? _I planned to be revenged upon you as well as merely to return home. And in the process to regain what you’d taken from me._ “Killing me in 2024 wouldn’t have been good enough. You’d still have been stranded in your past. Your connection to the speed force would still have been damaged. But kill me earlier, kill me _before_ we’d met, and the whole tangle would come undone.”

“Barry Allen,” Thawne says, almost to himself. “I never _will_ see you coming, will I?”

“How did you trick my future self into traveling back into 2000 so you could piggy-back off him?”

Thawne shrugs a little. “Gideon knew your true identity. I taunted him with it. Used a series of focused tachyon bursts to artificially boost my speed for a brief period, give him the impression that I’d managed to completely repair the damage he’d done. I convinced him I meant to travel back in time and murder him as a child.”

“And so, of course, I immediately ran back in time to protect myself.” Barry shakes his head in – does this qualify as self-disgust? “Thereby giving you the opening you’d need to come along and do what you could never have done otherwise.”

“One often meets one’s fate on the road one takes to avoid it.” Thawne taps his fingers together again and laughs. There’s even some genuine humor to it. “Time travel makes a mockery of most wisdom, but that particular proverb has only gotten more true the more I’ve seen.”

“And when my future self prevented you from killing the younger me, you killed Mom instead.”

“In the hopes that it would have the same effect. Trigger the same paradox. But it didn’t,” Thawne says. “Your future self went back to your own time, and I was trapped here. Trauma or no trauma, it seems you’re still the Flash at the end of the day.”

Barry opens his mouth. Closes it again. Tries to think of something to say. Fails utterly.

Thawne sighs. “Go home, Barry. Get some sleep, read a book, whatever. I’m going to do the same.”

“What about the – thing?” Barry gestures vaguely at the schematic still hovering in midair.

“It’s already being fabricated.”

Gideon says, helpfully, “I estimate completion in approximately thirty-seven point five three nine hours.”

“Be back here in thirty-eight hours,” Thawne says. “Wear the blacks. I’ll have everything else ready.”

“And then we just – go back to the past?”

“I doubt there will be anything ‘just’ about it.” Despite the whirl of thoughts and feelings he’s drowning in, Barry manages to catch the grim edge to Thawne’s voice. “When we leave this frame, we’re putting ourselves in conflict with your future self. And I can promise you this, Barry: it won’t be pleasant.”

_My future self. The one who –_

“What would happen if he steals _my_ speed?” Barry blurts out.

Thawne shakes his head. “Then we have a very bad day.”

 _He wouldn’t,_ Barry tells himself. _I’m_ him _. There’s a difference between doing it to his enemy and doing it to his own self._

Another, more rational voice intrudes. _I wouldn’t have thought I was capable of doing that to_ anyone _. But evidently – I am. What else am I capable of, that I don’t even know yet to fear?_

“Barry,” Thawne says suddenly.

Barry lifts his head up – when had he dropped it into his hands? – and manages, with an effort, to make his gaze focus on Eobard.

“If I’d managed to trigger the paradox as I’d intended, all of the effects of our timelines intersecting would have been undone.”

This means nothing to Barry. He continues to stare at Eobard.

Eobard sighs. “If killing you had reset the timeline, you wouldn’t have stayed dead,” he clarifies. “Much like the timeline fixed itself here, by slotting you in for the deleted Barry – the most economical way for the timeline to repair itself would have been to rewind. Put us all back into our original places. You would have been perfectly fine. You would simply never have met me.”

 _No fight,_ Barry remembers thinking, two months and a lifetime ago. Running back through time. Reviewing the plan in his head. _No attempted murder of Barry. No murder of Nora. Just two speedsters, born a century and a half apart, who will never meet._

Then Eobard says, “If killing your mother had reset the timeline – she, too, would have been perfectly fine.”

“What are you saying?” Barry whispers.

“I gambled with her life. You’re well within your rights to hate me for that.” Eobard pushes himself to his feet, swaying only slightly. He makes for the door himself. It’s a measure of how tired he must be that he doesn’t call on his super-speed, just moves at a normal pace.

“But for what it’s worth,” Eobard adds, “I expected to win.”

Thawne doesn’t wait, after that, for a response from Barry. Just leaves and closes the door to the Time Vault behind him. Maybe he knows that Barry doesn’t have a response. Maybe he knows that Barry may _never_ have a response to that.

Maybe Thawne just doesn’t care. He’d gambled with people’s lives. Someone like that doesn’t care. Can’t care.

Barry had gambled with the last fifteen years of the lives of everyone on the _planet_. All to save his mother.

Dr. Stein: _One different decision, no matter how big or small, impacts everything that follows. Moments upon moments, choices upon choices. No relationships, nothing would be as it is today, and you'd never know the difference because you'd never remember any of it._

How many of the people who’d been alive in Barry’s 2015 would have been dead when he’d gotten back, because of those small, snowballing differences? How many who had escaped death through chance, through luck, through decision, would have found their number coming up on a second roll of the dice? How many marriages would have ended in divorce? How many dreams denied? How many barriers unbroken?

Barry had tried to think about the consequences before he’d decided to come back, but he’s realizing suddenly that he’d barely scratched the surface. He’d been more concerned with the one minute and fifty-two second limit. More concerned with the possibility of paradox and singularity. He hadn’t taken the time to really consider that, with one fell swoop, he would have been playing God with seven _billion_ lives.

Some of those people would have been unaffected. Some of those people would have been better off. Some of those people?

 _We’re no different after all,_ Barry realizes, alone in the Time Vault while Gideon hums to herself in the background and the sensor plots on various screens continue to populate. _Eobard and I. The fact that I was trying to save my mother isn’t enough by itself to make me noble. The fact that he was trying to get home isn’t enough by itself to make him evil._

_We both treated everyone else as disposable in our individual quests. We both rolled the dice with billions of lives._

Worse. _We both lost._

Worst of all. _And now we’re getting ready to do it again._


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gets a warning for violence. For more details check out the end notes, which are mildly spoiler-y. Please read responsibly!

Barry gets to STAR Labs early for his appointment with fate. He takes his time before going to join Thawne in the particle accelerator, though. He goes up the cortex first.

For a long moment he just stands there, behind the terminals but out in front of the science labs, and looks around.

This isn’t his cortex. He reminds himself of that. He _is_ reminded of that, every time he looks around. Cisco’s station and Caitlin’s lab look largely the same, but there are other omissions everywhere he looks. Ronnie’s tools aren’t organized neatly on the currently-empty workbench. The secondary lab is being used more as a storage area at the moment; there’s no Dr. Stein frantically working calculations for the time jump on its many whiteboards. Barry’s own paraphernalia are conspicuous by their absence. He hasn’t been spending as much time here this go-round. No coming in early to work on his speed. No staying late to hang out with the team. No movie nights. No coffee runs to Jitters, which had used to leave empty cups scattered everywhere like particularly oddly-shaped hail, until Cisco would go on one of his neat kicks and clean everything up.

Barry’s been moving through this life like a ghost. And while the sun goes down over Central City this evening, he will vanish like one.

He closes his eyes and breathes for a moment. That, at least, is familiar. There’s the faint cardboard smell of aggressive filtration. The sharp scent of ozone. The extra effort it takes to haul every breath in. The cortex is kept at lower pressure, so that in the event of an atmospheric leak air rushes _into_ the labs instead of out – a necessary precaution when playing with potentially lethal biological and chemical agents.

The air in the cortex hasn’t changed. Won’t change, if Barry and Eobard are successful. Won’t change, if they fail, and Barry never comes back.

Barry opens his eyes. Underneath Cisco’s workstation he tucks an envelope. If he _doesn’t_ come back, he wants there to be at least some explanation, for as long as it may matter until his deletion settles and they all forget they ever knew him.

A second envelope goes on Caitlin’s usual lab stool. A third is already tucked into the pocket of Iris’ favorite coat. After some debate, Barry’s decided against leaving one for Joe. Nothing Barry could say would be enough for Joe. Better to explain to the others, and let them speak to him.

A fourth is in the mail for Henry. And a fifth –

That fifth letter had cost Barry a lot of effort. A lot of self-doubt. A struggle with everything that’s been and everything that might be. Even in the face of utter deletion, there are some truths that are hard to accept.

But now that he’s done it, he’s glad he has. _Knowledge is power._ Barry knows himself at long last.

Barry nods to himself, then zips into his suit and heads down to the particle accelerator.

* * *

Thawne’s already waiting, suited up. He looks up when Barry enters and offers a small smile.

“How do you feel?”

“Terrified,” Barry admits frankly. He’s got nothing left to lose by being honest.

“Good to know we’re both on the same page.” Thawne holds up two small pieces of technology, one in each palm. They look like a cross between a set of wraparound Bluetooth headphones and the robotic mind-control device from _Save The Green Planet._

(Caitlin and Barry had instituted a veto system for movie night after that, though Cisco had maintained that he didn’t understand what the other two were talking about; it was a classic, and if they were scarred for life, it was their own faults.)

Barry shakes off the memory. “Those are the thingies?”

“These are the highly advanced pieces of technology with which we are going to share our connections to the speed force, travel back through time, repair whatever damage has been done, and restore balance to the timeline, yes,” Thawne deadpans.

Barry takes one of the devices and smiles without quite meaning to. “You never came up with a name for them, did you?”

“I, in fact – ” Eobard pauses, then laughs ruefully. “Never came up with a name for them, no.” He settles the device around the back of his neck and shrugs a little. “I guess I’ve gotten too used to having Cisco around.”

“He is good at that,” Barry agrees, emulating Thawne as best he can.

“Here.” Eobard reaches over and adjusts Barry’s device for him. Barry hadn’t seen any connectors on the device, but there’s an unmistakable sensation that skitters down his spine when Eobard adjusts it correctly, a sense of something slotting into place. He shivers.

“Before we turn them on, a couple of notes on how these things work,” Thawne says. “First of all, the connection is _shared_ , not duplicated. That means we have to agree on how to use it. If I try going one way and you go another, best case scenario is that we simply go nowhere. Worst-case is that the connection breaks and we’re both stranded wherever we are.”

“Do you just mean within the timestream, or – ”

“We don’t literally have to run in the same direction, no. But we _do_ have to connect and disconnect to the speed force in tandem. If you’re running, I’m running, and vice versa. Even if we’re _not_ traveling through time.”

Barry groans. “You’re kidding.”

“Nope.” Thawne smirks. “We’re going to have to work together.”

“Is it too late to just go into the woods and do trust falls?”

The smirk slides off of Thawne’s face. “A little, yes.”

Barry sighs, feeling inexplicably guilty for having punctured the moment of levity, shallow as it had been. “Okay.”

“The reverse is true too. If we’re both running, and one of us stops, the other will be forced to stop too.”

“So we really had better stick together,” Barry says. “I wish we had some time to practice.”

“Me too.” Thawne shakes his head. “Records of your college degree vanished overnight. I didn’t want to worry you, but – ”

“ – we _really_ don’t have time to sit around.”

“No.”

“Okay.”

“One other thing,” Thawne adds. “The future Flash’s ability to sense things through the Speed Force is better than mine. I don’t know what his limits are. Assume that anything you do that relies on the Speed Force, he can sense.”

“Oh. Great,” Barry says, because there doesn’t seem to be anything else to say.

Thawne quirks a smile. “Indeed.” He rolls his shoulders. “Well. Ready?”

“As I’ll ever be,” Barry sighs.

“Gideon?” Thawne asks.

“Enabling the devices now, Professor.”

There’s no audible sound. Barry nevertheless hears, or perhaps he feels, a quiet _click_.

And then.

Eobard is suddenly a warm living presence in the speed force, infinitely larger and closer than the usual faint signature that Barry senses from the other speedster. Instead of a grace note he’s an entire symphony, close enough to reach out and touch with nonphysical fingers. He’s dizzying and complex and utterly fascinating.

After that Barry gives up completely on trying to find an existing set of words or images to express what he knows quite certainly. Eobard is simply there, right there, a natural extension of Barry. His – outline? – fizzles and sputters, evidence of his damaged connection to the speed force. The speed force itself seems repulsed by Eobard in equal measure as it’s drawn to him. They are trying always to connect, and always being torn apart again right at the instant of completion.

It makes Barry whimper in unintentional but deeply felt agony. They’re in pain all the time, the two of them. Not physical pain. Not really. But the neural centers that process pain don’t comprehend the distinction. Maybe it’s better compared to phantom limb syndrome: something that should be present but is missing; nerves misfiring, sending to receivers that are no longer connected.

It’s instinctive and the work of a moment for Barry to extend himself, soothing and easing the angry roiling tension. Eobard is connected to Barry now, and Barry is connected to the speed force, and it sings freely through both of them, clear and relieved and soothing.

“Oh,” Eobard says quietly. Barry opens eyes he hadn’t realized he’d closed, and finds that he’s standing closer to Eobard than he had been. At some point Barry’s hands have found their way to Eobard’s shoulders. Eobard’s hands are half-raised, as if he’d started to push Barry away and then frozen mid-action. Slowly now they lower. Settle on Barry’s waist.

“Oh,” Barry echoes.

Once, long ago, Thawne – the Thawne from 2015 – had showed Barry that it is possible to speak through the speed force. It’s not actually speech, of course. It’s closer to telepathy, though Barry knows that true telepathy is quite different. But it’s mental, not physical. And what’s exchanged are something more and less than words. Images. Impressions. All conveying a clear enough meaning, provided that the speaker and the listener are focused enough.

Barry’s never communicated with someone in the speed force _without_ that focus.

_Relief_ , is the first thing Barry understands clearly from Eobard. Catharsis. Relaxation. A release from the constant nonphysical pain of his damaged connection.

_Wonder_ comes next, closely followed by _joy_. That part Eobard reserves at first for himself, for the genius that had developed the connection-sharing technology. Eobard’s got quite the ego. Barry smiles without thinking about it, appreciative. Eobard’s ego is quite deserved, from where Barry is standing.

Then the sensation of joy extends, comes to encompass Barry himself. It’s fleeting, but Barry savors it. Savors the associated gratitude. Whatever else has been between them, in this moment when Eobard tastes the speed force again without pain, he’s nothing but joyful and grateful to his nemesis.

The speed force is still alive in them both. Neither of them are actively drawing on it, but it doesn’t settle back down to its usual quiet hum in the back of Barry’s mind. It remains active. Eager. For connection. For completion. For –

_Oh._ Yes. That.

Barry kisses Eobard. He had planned this out differently, intended – but it no longer matters what he’d intended, when he’d turned his own soul inside out to write that fifth letter, the one meant for Eobard, and discovered this most astonishing truth hidden at the bottom of it. What matters is this moment of singing joy, and the taste of Eobard’s mouth as it parts in astonishment and Barry falls in.

He simply cannot do anything else. He knows Eobard, suddenly, in a way no one else alive ever has or ever will. Maybe that had always been true; maybe he, Barry Allen, had always been one step closer to the man underneath the Reverse Flash than anyone else had managed. But the intimacy of enemies is nothing compared to _this_ intimacy. In the speed force the distance between them means nothing. Irrelevant distinctions of enmity fall away. In this moment nothing matters but the joy that comes from pressing themselves together as closely as they can. Eobard kisses Barry back, caught up in the same sweep of emotions, and the speed force sings through their connection, joyful too in its turn.

Then – when Eobard’s eyes open again and he sees Barry standing close to him – fear jolts through the connection lightning-quick, followed almost instantaneously by rage and hatred and bitter despair. Images bombard their connection suddenly. Fast, too fast for Barry to catch even immersed as he is in the speed force, but their meaning is all too clear. Barry’s face belongs to the Flash, too, and the Flash is Eobard Thawne’s most hated and feared enemy. Eobard pulls back, a sudden withdrawal, and Barry hears himself cry out in dim protest.

_Eobard_ , he calls to his reverse, and feels Eobard shudder with the urge to respond.

Barry clings unashamedly; he’s let too many things slip through his fingers, lived with too many regrets for things unsaid or undone to fail to clutch tightly to what he can still fight for. He makes no effort to withdraw out of their shared connection. No attempt to guard his mind or shield his emotions. He lets Eobard examine it all. And after the first shocked moments, Eobard does, greedily consuming everything Barry’s left open.

It only takes an eyeblink. There’s a longer moment of stillness after. But it brings no renewed attempt at seperation with it, and Barry begins, ever so slightly, to hope.

A new series of images, confused memories, bubble out of Eobard. Barry coming to STAR Labs the night the particle accelerator had been turned on, looking up at the man he’d thought had been his hero. Barry in the hospital bed after the lightning strike. Joe and Iris, anguished and fearful for their adoptive son. Cisco and Caitlin murmuring among themselves. Close to giving up on Barry. Wondering what’s keeping their boss and mentor faithful.

Barry waking up. Confronting Eobard in the cortex. Asserting his own strength, his own position, and demanding to be treated as an equal. Surprise and chagrin and a slow sneaking respect that keeps growing, no matter how Eobard represses it, reminds it of what they’ve suffered at Barry’s hands. The raid on Mercury Labs. The final challenge. _Are you in there, Flash? Some part of you must be… mustn’t it?_

The late night, Eobard immersing himself in the stolen power supply, searching through records with Gideon’s help. The realization of what the odd energy spikes mean. Pulling up the old schematic for the connection-sharing devices – because Eobard is a scientist, because he’s driven, because he has to know. Will the stolen power supply work with them? Tracing the schematic, measuring the voltages, calculating for the need to build two receivers, but finally the answer – _yes._ It will work. And then the wobble on the knife’s edge. _What to do with this information?_

Let Barry disappear? Be revenged? Return to his own time, free of the Flash – the expressed and affirmed wish of Eobard’s heart?

In the long hours of that even longer night, another wish had made itself known. But to even think such a thing! After what the future Flash had done – when every moment is spent in pain, when every time Eobard looks around he sees the wheelchair he depends on tucked against the console waiting for its next use –

Barry’s arrival in the morning had been unexpected. Eobard hadn’t thought to see Barry at all, that day, after what had passed between them at Mercury Labs. Certainly hadn’t expected to see Barry at dawn – not that Eobard had even realized it had been dawn – with an offering of coffee, and a willingness to keep working, in spite of everything Eobard’s ever done to Barry in _his_ turn.

Wonder, again. And a sudden easing of duty, of anger, and of self-loathing, into acceptance.

Eobard says, _For fifteen years I had to remind myself, sometimes hourly, sometimes only daily, that you were not the same monster I had left behind in 2024. I had seen before the way changes in timeline affect people. But never quite so completely as the way it’s affected you… I kept searching, trying to find the parts of you that would become the Flash I first met. So certain that the earnestness was an act. Or if not an act, a shallow veneer, that would be scraped off the moment life got hard for you._

_Life got hard for me the moment my mother died,_ Barry says back. _I didn’t have to wait to become grown to learn that the world would not always order itself to my wishes. That wanting something badly enough could sometimes make absolutely no difference. That there would be times when no amount of power would be enough… and so power without a purpose, without mercy, was meaningless._

_I think,_ Eobard says with a note of finality, _that that is something your old future self never learned._

Barry has never met his old future self. He has only Eobard’s memories to go on. Biased they must surely be, but connected as closely as they are now, Barry can feel everything as if it had happened to him.

_I think you’re right,_ he agrees somberly.

_I killed your mother,_ Eobard says. It almost seems to burst out of him, as if he can’t hold it back. In the resulting blizzard of images and emotions Barry loses sight briefly of which come from he and which come from Eobard.

Except – there’s one memory that Barry knows has to come from him. Because it’s of the other Eobard. The one from 2015. The one at the end of his road. The one Barry had kept coming back to, in the last thirty-six hours, as he’d wrestled with himself and his newly-discovered feelings.

_Just like that,_ that Thawne murmurs. _You go back in time, and you save her, Barry Allen. Undo all the evil I’ve done._

What had that now-deleted Thawne been thinking, when he’d said that? What had he meant? What might he have come to learn and decide about the Barry Allen he’d trained, that he’d never gotten to tell?

_Don’t talk like that,_ Barry had snapped back at him.

_Like what?_

_Like we’re partners. Like you’re –_

_Rooting for you?_ A pause. _Proud of you?_

_Like you care._

The Eobard here with Barry now watches the memory play out between them. And: _I can’t promise that he really cared,_ Eobard says quietly. _I can’t – I’m good at lying to you, Barry._

_I know,_ Barry says helplessly. _And maybe he_ was _lying. Or maybe he was telling a very limited sort of truth – I did often feel that you cared for me, the other you, but not like this. More like – the way that a rider feels for their horse. Something useful. Something to be proud of, maybe, something to show off, but never something to – to –_

_– to respect,_ Eobard suggests.

_Yes._

_Barry,_ Eobard whispers. He hesitates, just for a moment, then kisses Barry again.

Wrapped in the speed force as they are, it’s impossible to know how long Barry spends falling into his nemesis, drowning in the simple sensation of lips against lips and arms holding another body close. It’s all brand new, and yet it feels as if they’ve done it before. An echo of something flashes through the speed force. The implications of _that_ makes Barry gasp, before Eobard swallows it along the series of cries he pulls from Barry on its heels.

“How long do we have before we have to go?” Barry pants, in one of his very brief pauses for breath.

“We shouldn’t delay,” Eobard says back, equally breathless. “The aftershocks – unpredictable – ”

“How long does it take for a speedster to get off?” Barry counters.

Eobard doesn’t answer immediately, distracted as he is. Gideon steps into the gap after a brief pause and says, “Averaging from Professor Thawne’s history, the mean time to completion is five point six seconds, with a standard deviation of – ”

“Gideon,” Eobard says, “shut up, please.” And he hauls Barry in closer.

An indeterminate number of seconds later, Barry tucks his head against Eobard’s shoulder and gives in to the urge to utter what is even to his ears the most stereotypical blissed-out moan ever. “Oh my God,” he murmurs.

Eobard laughs a little, not unkindly, and runs a hand down Barry’s side. It’s probably meant to be comforting, and Barry does find it so, but also echoing through the speed force is the sense of disbelieving, exultant possession. Maybe this makes Barry a bad person, because he immediately moans again and presses closer to Eobard.

“I feel like a teenager,” Eobard says a moment later.

“I never did the whole coming-in-my-pants thing as a teenager,” Barry confesses.

“It’s less fun than it sounds once the naughty feeling wears off. Shower?”

“Do we have time for that?”

“The same amount of time we had for this, I suppose,” Eobard sighs. “Gideon – ”

“No new spikes recorded,” Gideon says. As an AI, she is of course incapable of sounding smug. Barry decides that the sound must all be in his mind.

“A fast shower,” Barry promises. He even manages to keep his hands to himself. His mouth, well… he’s always wanted to try giving a blowjob. His fantasies had mostly centered around Iris and a strap-on, perforce, but he’s delighted with the opportunity to experiment with living flesh.

It’s the first time Barry has thought of Iris since he and Eobard had connected themselves. Perhaps it’s inevitable that her name falls into a sudden silence between them like a rock sinking into a pond.

“Barry – ” Eobard begins. From him comes an image. The newspaper, again. The byline. _Iris West-Allen._

Barry counters with another memory. Iris, pulling Barry aside in the last quiet moments before he’d gone back to the year 2000. Showing her the ring Eddie had given her. Telling him about Eddie’s proposal.

_Screw the future,_ Eddie had said.

“Screw the future,” Barry echoes aloud. “We’re about to change it all anyway. Who knows what it will look like when the dust settles? All I know is the here and now. And in the here and now, _this_ is what I want.”

Eobard’s gaze darkens. There’s a flickering around his edges in the speed force again. A small jolt of pain, as Eobard starts to pull away, and the speed force protests.

“You’ve wanted her for fifteen years,” Eobard says. “You can’t tell me something like that just goes away.”

“I’ve hated my mother’s murderer for fifteen years, too,” Barry says steadily. “And you’ve hated the Flash for the same length of time. So what?”

“So this is foolish. And doomed.”

“So are we.”

It’s clear that Eobard hadn’t been expecting this. “What?”

“Come on. You’re the genius. You must have already realized it.” Barry smiles humorlessly and spreads his hands. “What we’re doing right now, right here, this isn’t the real timeline. It’s a little branch, or maybe a bubble – the point is? It doesn’t belong. It can’t last. When we fix the timeline, this is going to disappear.”

“We won’t, necessarily.”

“But we won’t end up in the same place, either. _We_ don’t belong.” Barry shrugs. “So what does it matter what we do, in the meanwhile?”

Eobard’s eyes narrow in familiar calculation, and Barry can feel him weakening. Barry’s challenge has taken him off guard. Eobard had expected an appeal to emotion, not to logic. An heroic paean on the power of love, possibly coupled with unrealistic promises of eternal devotion.

Barry’s not a fool. At least, he tries not to be. He knows there’s more between them than can be settled with a moment of joy and a few furtive fumbles in STAR Labs. And he’s realized, in the last thirty-six hours, that averting the deletion of Barry Allen in general does not mean averting the deletion of _this_ Barry Allen in particular. The Barry Allen who’s supposed to be here is already gone. The Barry Allen of the future bears no resemblance to the man Barry sees in the mirror. Even if they succeed in fixing the timeline, if everything settles down and they get back to the way everything is supposed to be, there’s still absolutely no guarantee that the Barry who exists _then_ will be the Barry who exists _now_. Nor the Eobard, for that matter.

It’s terrifying. But it’s also, oddly, freeing. It means Barry doesn’t have to grapple with the long-term consequences of this liaison. Reconcile his mother’s death with his conscience. Confront the debt he owes Eobard for maiming him and trapping him in the past. Deal with the effects of possibly deleting the _–Allen_ from Iris’ name and the future newspaper’s byline.

“Manducemus et bibamus, cras enim moriemur?” Eobard murmurs, still thoughtful.

“Evil company corrupts good character,” Barry counter-quotes with a shrug. “I guess you’ve corrupted me after all, Reverse Flash.”

Eobard looks almost dismayed. He kisses Barry again, but the way he does it is like he’s trying to push something away.

Barry kisses Eobard back anyway. He’s got too little time left to waste.

* * *

They go back up to the particle accelerator when they’re both ready, or rather, when they’re both unable to justify any further delay.

Barry comes to stand next to Thawne. Shoulder to shoulder, looking out into the vast expanse of the particle accelerator, ready to run.

“Our connection is still stable,” Thawne says, retreating into facts. “Gideon, we’ll want you to give us a count. Mr. Allen, once in the speed force, you’ll be in charge of guiding us to our destination.”

“I’ll try to get us there a little early,” Barry says. “Give us time to get in position.”

“Gideon will be monitoring the tachyon energy in the area.”

“We have accurate readings of the expected energy baseline from Professor Thawne’s previous visit to 2000,” Gideon says. “It is an extremely noisy environment. I will be focused on tracking deviations from the previous recording.”

“We’re not looking for general activity,” Thawne clarifies. “We’re specifically looking for the change your future self made – ”

“Or I made,” Barry says calmly.

Thawne shrugs. “Or you made,” he concedes, “that triggered your deletion. When we find it, we’ll act in whatever way seems best to stop it.”

“I’m ready,” Barry says.

Thawne looks like he wants to say or do something else. But after a moment he just nods, and settles into his stance at Barry’s side.

“I am beginning the count,” Gideon informs them. “Three. Two. One – ”

* * *

The street looks the same. The houses, too. As if someone’s reached into Barry’s mind and drawn out a single image, then constructed an elaborate replica of his childhood neighborhood.

_In a way we did,_ Thawne murmurs through the speed force. _It was your memories that guided us here, not mine._

A shriek is heard. Not, Barry realizes belatedly, by his ears. This shattered-glass sound is the sound of the fabric of space and time being torn open. It echoes through the speed force. Barry’s mind, unsure of how to process this sensation, encodes it as sound.

_Future you is here,_ Thawne says grimly.

_And past you._ Barry takes a deep shuddering breath, then reaches for detachment. Starts moving towards his childhood home. _Back door will be open. Dad always forgot to lock it._

Walking, making himself walk, is harder than Barry would ever have thought it would be. But tipping off either of the time travelers from 2024 would be fatal – if not to the timeline, then at least to the two of them from 2014.

The back door _is_ unlocked. They slip through it and press themselves against the wall of the kitchen, out of sight of the battle beginning to rage in the living room.

Eobard has his wrist-mounted communicator held up to his face. Gideon’s remote presence is tracking the energy levels in the local area and displaying them as a graph on the screen. Barry watches the tachyon levels dance as the space-time continuum goes haywire. But the baseline and the live measurements are tracking together for the moment. No changes yet.

Eobard keeps watching. Barry tips his head back against the wallpaper and squeezes his eyes shut. Wishes he could do the same to his hearing. He knows what’s going on in that room by sound alone. Knows what the screams mean. What the shouts signify. What the soft _plip_ of blood splattering against the far wall indicates. He hears it when his younger self all but falls down the stairs, tumbling into the room. Hears it when his father’s heavier footsteps burst onto the scene.

_Mom! Mom!_

_Barry! Run!_

_Nora! Hold on!_

Barry doesn’t dare speak. He makes himself open his eyes long enough to look at Eobard, who shakes his head.

Nothing yet.

The noise intensifies, coming to a crescendo.

_Nora! Nora!_

_No! No, no, no –_

The speed force vibrates again. The future Flash, whisking Barry’s younger self out of the room.

Barry grabs Eobard’s wrist and stares at the dial. Nothing. _Nothing_. No unexplained spikes. Nothing has changed. Then how –

Eobard’s eyes widen. _Outside!_ he hisses.

There’s only one way to catch up with the future Flash and young Barry. Barry _runs_ , Eobard at his heels.

A young boy is crying in the street, ten blocks away. Inside an ordinary suburban home, a well-respected local doctor is trying – and failing – to save his wife’s life. When he leaves to run next door, to call for help, another version of Barry Allen steps in to say goodbye to his dying mother. Across town, Harrison Wells and Tess Morgan are about to lose their lives in a car accident that will be no accident. And in front of that crying boy, a man in a crimson suit is standing, all of his attention fixed on his younger self.

“Hey, hey,” the future Flash says soothingly. “There’s no need to cry.”

Behind the parked car that’s shielding them from view, Barry proves that a lie, feeling the first tears start running down his face. Eobard is squeezed in next to him. They’re pressed together closely, and not just in the quest for concealment. Any human touch is welcome right now. Even Eobard’s.

Young Barry hiccups. “Mom!” he wails. He turns, starting to run himself. It’s almost comical, seeing his utterly inadequate speed, in comparison to what his future selves will be able to achieve.

The future Flash is able to get ahead of young Barry easily. “I can’t let you go back there,” he says.

“But I have to help Mom!”

“You won’t get back in time to save your Mom.”

Eobard’s eyes widen even behind his mask. He goes from tense to nearly rigid. He tugs his arm up from where it’s trapped between he and Barry, tilting it so they can both see the display. The baseline traces its prerecorded path in blue. In yellow, so close that it blurs together with the baseline and turns it green, Gideon’s live measurements appear.

The future Flash goes to one knee before young Barry. He pulls his mask back. Barry stares across the distance of years at his future self. There are more lines, especially around his eyes. There’s a scar on his left cheek. There’s an empty void in his eyes.

The lines on the display start to diverge.

“There is one way you can still help her,” the future Flash tells young Barry, smiling kindly with thin lips. “It may hurt a little. But I think you’re brave enough for it. What do you say?”

Barry’s breath seizes in his chest. _No. No, no, no –_

The young Barry squares his shoulders and looks at the future Flash, unafraid. “I’m brave!”

The future Flash nods. “Then all I need you to do,” he says, raising his vibrating right hand, “is stand very, very – _still._ ”

He stabs his younger self through the heart.

Barry thinks he may scream. He’s not sure. He knows he tries to run forward. To stop his future self, though he knows it’s too late – his child-self is already impaled, staring in betrayed horror at the man in the crimson suit, blood beginning to bubble from the wound and run down to pool at his feet.

Eobard is saying something at Barry’s side, something low and vicious like curses or mathematical constants. There are two arms around Barry’s chest like iron bands and a muffled sensation blanketing Barry’s limbs. Where is Barry’s speed? Why can’t he draw upon it? Barry’s standing. Eobard is standing with him, still holding into him – Eobard is stopping him from running out there; while they share their connection either of them can put on the brakes – but Barry’s standing, and his future self has turned his head, is staring right at the two of them –

The twitching corpse that had been a small boy slides off the future speedster’s hand and lands on the blacktop. The echoes of that death shudder through Barry. Physically, in agony and revulsion. And also through the speed force. Tearing through all of space and time. Paradox. Deletion. Reality creaks and groans under the weight.

“Looks like it’s my lucky day,” the future Flash remarks, regarding the other two speedsters with amusement. “Two paradoxes for the price of one. And getting to kill you into the bargain, Thawne?” He laughs. “Now that’s going to be a dream come true.”

He lunges forward in a burst of yellow lightning. Eobard shouts, and suddenly the speed returns to Barry’s limbs.

At the velocity they’re going, there’s really no question of remaining in the year 2000. Nor is there any desire to. The death of young Barry Allen, aged nine, bursts from its physical location and explodes outwards in time. Barry feels it at his back. It reaches out, trying to ensnare him, only to be blocked by the envelopment of the speed force protecting him.

Eobard is pulling Barry forward. The other Flash is in the speed force with them. Chasing them. Blue streaks are at his heels now. He’s gaining.

_Barry!_ Eobard shouts. _Barry, run!_

Barry tries. He really, really does. But he feels drained. Enervated. His own connection to the speed force seems to be ebbing away, and with it, Eobard’s.

Eobard swears. He swerves, which does strange and probably bad things to Barry’s perception of time and space. Then, with an abruptness that jars Barry’s teeth and makes his stomach roil, Eobard drops them both out of the speed force and into a dark, dank alleyway.

Eobard doesn’t stop there. He hauls Barry to his feet and all but carries him forward. Not towards the mouth of the alley, but towards its back end. There Eobard briefly leaves Barry to stand on his own – a harder task than it sounds – while he pries open a manhole cover.

Barry watches this blankly. He doesn’t know what a manhole cover has to do with anything. Nor can he quite summon the will to care. All he can think about is his younger self’s body, bleeding out on the road.

“Come on,” Eobard urges when the manhole cover is open. Barry can’t help, but he doesn’t resist as Eobard gets them both down the ladder and the cover closed again.

He does just have the ability to notice one thing. Among the dirt and the refuse in the alleyway had been a bundle of newspapers, still wrapped in plastic cords, either never picked up or discarded unsold from a newsstand. They’d been torn and stained, but the headline and the picture on them had been intelligible, though probably only because Barry has seen them before.

_FLASH MISSING. VANISHES IN CRISIS._

They’re in the future.

They’re in 2024.

And Barry Allen is dead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The end of this chapter contains violence against a child. It is not very descriptive, nor is it dwelled upon, but it is definitely present. If you want further details leave me a comment please and we can figure it out.


	8. Chapter 8

As soon as the manhole cover is settled back into place, Eobard comes over to Barry, who’s using the sewer wall to help remain upright.

“I have to assume this is going to be unpleasant for you as well,” Eobard says. He reaches around the back of Barry’s neck and –

Barry’s stomach lurches again. The sense of Eobard, the presence of him in the speed force, vanishes like a popped balloon. He can still sense Eobard, but only just – only if he stretches –

“Stop,” Eobard orders. He curls his fingers around Barry’s wrist – limp at Barry’s side; it hadn’t been his physical hand Barry had been using to reach out – and says, “Your future self can track us through the speed force. Remember? The more we use it, the easier we make it for him. I know it’s hard, but try to turn it off as much as possible.”

Barry wants to scream at how unfair that is. The speed force is part of him; turning it off is like hacking off a limb. It’s worse now that Barry knows what it feels like to be that close to Eobard. Turning the connection between them off makes Barry stagger. He slumps further against the wall of the sewer. Breathing suddenly becomes a struggle.

No connection means no emotional support, either. Barry hadn’t realized he’d been using it as an outlet until the connection’s severing sends a wave of emotion bouncing right back to Barry. He feels like he’s drowning in the sudden redoubled pain and dismay and betrayal.

Eobard taps at his wrist. “Gideon, I need you to start tracking the pulses in the timestream more directly – now that we know the proximate cause, we should be able to – Gideon?” Eobard’s voice ticks up in sudden worry, and he taps several more times. “Gideon, come in!”

No response.

“Oh _shit_ ,” Eobard mutters. He looks up. “Barry, are you with me?”

Barry considers this question. His personal timeline is still being consumed by paradox; he’s in a future that isn’t really his, presumably being chased by a future self that is orders of magnitude more powerful in the speed force than Barry is, whose stated goal is to kill him; and, oh, said future self has just demonstrated that he can in fact do something worse than maiming another speedster. His friends and family have probably either been erased from existence or won’t remember him. The only person who might be said to be on his side is Eobard, who until recently had sworn an oath to destroy Barry and everything Barry holds dear.

“…no,” Barry decides.

“Well, _get it together,_ ” Eobard snaps. “We need to move.”

“Move _where_?”

“Somewhere your future self won’t find us.”

Barry laughs. He has to laugh, because he’s pretty sure that screaming will just make the situation worse.

Barry’s future self. The Flash of this time. Who had just _murdered his nine-year-old self._

_Whatever kind of villain I am, it’s the kind I learned to be from you._

Barry seems to have taught Eobard very well indeed.

“Don’t make me slap you like we’re in some period drama,” Eobard threatens. He grabs Barry by the shoulders, shaking him. “Barry. I know that must have been a shock – ”

“A _shock_ ,” Barry says disbelievingly. “A – Eobard, I just murdered _myself!”_

“It’s not the first murder you’ve witnessed,” Eobard says brutally. “If you don’t want to witness your own murder next, you’ll damn well snap out of it.”

Barry gasps in sudden sick fury. All the emotions that have been building up inside him coalesce into a ball of hurt and anger and punch Barry straight in the gut. He pulls his mask off, hoping it will help him breathe. It doesn’t seem to be working. Barry draws in two heaving breaths, then twists in Eobard’s grip and vomits into the muck at their feet.

Eobard holds Barry steady. “There you go,” he sighs. “Back with me now?”

Barry heaves a few extra times for good measure. Then he wipes the back of his mouth with his hand and sighs. “I guess so.”

“Sorry. I know it was – ”

“For the love of God, don’t apologize to me,” Barry begs. He simply can’t afford to have another breakdown right here in the middle of the Central City sewer system.

Eobard stiffens. “As you wish,” he says, withdrawing his grip and letting Barry stand on his own power. “Then come on.” He starts off down the tunnels.

Barry doesn’t need the speed force to see that Eobard is hurt. Nor to know that Eobard would sooner die than admit that hurt aloud. In the speed force Eobard hadn’t been able to hide. Barry had tasted his forlorn dreams and stunted hopes. They’d flared briefly to life when Barry had kissed him, burning brightly behind Barry’s mind’s eye with all the strength of decades of denial. Barry can’t see them now. But he can see the stiffness in every line of Eobard’s body. The way Eobard’s gait has lost its grace. He’s being careful with his movements again. He’s in pain again. And Barry knows, with a certainty that needs no connection, that it’s not just physical.

“Eobard,” Barry says.

“Come on, don’t dawdle.”

“I forgive you.”

Eobard promptly makes a hypocrite of himself, stopping dead in the middle of the sewer. He turns his head to face Barry, managing to make it seem eerily reminiscent of that scene from _the Exorcist_.

“What did you say?” he demands.

“I forgive you. For killing Mom.”

Eobard continues to stare at Barry. Then he says, “You’re still in shock.” He nods to himself, as if satisfied by this explanation, and resumes walking.

Barry has to jog a little to catch up. It doesn’t do great things for his stomach, but needs must. “Probably,” he admits candidly. “But – Eobard, I just saw myself murder a nine-year-old child. Even before you factor in that that child was _also_ myself, that’s… well… evil.”

“So one evil deed forgives another?” Eobard’s snort doesn’t have an ounce of give in it. “You’re not making any sense.”

“If the version of me you met first was anything like the version of me I just saw murder a nine-year-old,” Barry says doggedly, “then I am no longer surprised that you were willing to do whatever it took to stop him from accumulating his power.”

Eobard looks surprised. “What makes you think that _that’s_ why I did it?”

“You told me,” Barry tells him.

“No. I killed your mother because I wanted to hurt you.” Eobard quickens his pace a little, pulls ahead. He’s now refusing to look at Barry at all.

“Finish the sentence,” Barry insists. “Or, wait, you already did.” He closes his eyes briefly, the better to remember. “‘ _But then I thought: what if you were to suffer a tragedy? What if you were to suffer something so horrible, so traumatic, that your child self could never recover? Then you would not become the Flash.’”_

Eobard’s expression has become stony. He’s attempting to be inscrutable. It’s not working.

Barry presses. “You also said that if forcing a paradox had worked, my mother would have survived.”

“And I was wrong!” Eobard shouts. He stops again and turns, his whole body this time, seething – not at Barry; at himself. “I thought a paradox would reset everything, but it didn’t! You killed _yourself_ , and nothing happened!” He tears his hood off, the better to face Barry. The better, presumably, to make sure Barry understands the magnitude of what he’s saying. “I killed your mother for _nothing_.”

“Not for nothing,” Barry says softly. “Look at me, Eobard. You were right.”

“I was right about nothing.”

“You were right about this. _Look at me._ I just heaved my guts out at the idea of murder. Killing my mother _did_ change me.” Barry’s crying again; he dashes the tears from his cheeks impatiently, wondering why he’d never learned how not to cry the way all the other adults in his life seem to have managed. But: “It changed me in ways that I will _never_ recover from. The result is that I’m not a monster.”

“And I am,” Eobard says. His voice is quiet, too, but there’s nothing soft about it. “All I did was transfer the monstrosity from you to me.”

Barry processes this slowly. He can’t find a flaw with it. It may have started with Nora Allen, but it hadn’t ended there. Harrison Wells. Tess Morgan. An unknown, unnamed body of lives that represent the fourteen years between Nora’s death and the particle accelerator explosion. All dead at Eobard’s hands. If Barry’s remain clean, that’s only because someone else has been doing the dirty work for him. His suit is scarlet with the blood of those who have died to create him.

He wonders, with a creeping sense of defeat, if there’s any way to have the Flash _without_ the blood.

_Probably not._

“Eobard – ” he starts.

“Don’t,” Eobard says. “Just – don’t.”

Eobard keeps walking. Barry keeps pace, watching Eobard out of the corner of his eyes. There’s an anger simmering close to Eobard’s surface that Barry recognizes, though he hasn’t seen it, he realizes suddenly, in months.

This is Eobard Thawne at his most dangerous. Externally calm, internally furious, and more than ready to rend something if it will stop the pain.

The conversation languishes after that.

* * *

They walk on in utter silence. Eobard, brooding; Barry, reeling.

Eventually Barry has to speak. “Where are we going?”

“During my time in 2024, I had established several bases of operations around the city,” Eobard says tersely. “They include useful technology and some defenses. We are making for the nearest of them now.”

“You think they’ll still be there?”

“If you have an alternate plan, I am eager to hear it.”

“You know I don’t,” Barry says steadily, not rising to the bait.

They continue walking in silence until at last Eobard slows. “Here,” he says, motioning Barry down the next side tunnel they get to.

Barry turns obediently. “What are we looking for?”

“It’s difficult to describe… just keep an eye out for your future self, and I’ll find it.”

They continue perhaps a hundred meters. Eobard’s steps slow further, and he turns his head from side to side, scanning the sewer walls. “Not far now,” he murmurs.

“In fact I think you’ve gone quite far enough,” a familiar voice says.

It’s not Barry’s voice. It’s –

A small group of people appears. The speaker is in the lead, wearing a black trenchcoat and a hauntingly familiar visor. He’s holding a very large gun. There’s a sound that bears no resemblance to a gun safety being removed and the trigger cocked, except that Barry instinctively knows that it carries the same meaning.

“Cisco!” Barry blurts out.

“That’s Reverb to you,” Cisco says coldly. “Put your hands up. And don’t even think about tapping into the speed force.” At his side, Hartley Rathaway – wearing his gauntlets – lifts a small remote and makes a show of pressing a button. Several small light sources flare up from the sides of the sewer tunnel, fading backwards behind Barry and Eobard – out to the main tunnel, probably. “You’ll find yourself quite unable to reach it.”

“I know. I installed those,” Eobard snaps. “Back when I fortified this place. What are you – ”

“Which one are you?” Caitlin interrupts. She’s at Cisco’s other side. Her hair is white, and the lines around her mouth are deep with anger and distrust.

“Before you answer, think carefully,” Cisco says. “I will know if you’re lying or not. And if you are?” He gestures past Barry and Eobard. A soft whine meets Barry’s ears, and he turns his head slightly. He’s not entirely surprised to see Ronnie, eyes burning, standing in the sewer tunnel behind them with flames dancing in his palms.

“Methane tends to build up in sewers,” Cisco says. There’s nothing playful or amused in his voice at all. He sounds cold and in deadly earnest. “Make for quite an explosion. Enough to kill even a speedster.”

“We’re from 2014,” Eobard says. “We went back to 2000, we saw what this time’s Flash did to change the timeline – we’re not with him!” When Cisco doesn’t relent, he snarls. “What do you want me to say?”

“Not that,” Hartley says laconically. He transfers his gaze from Eobard to Barry. “You want to give it a try?”

As a matter of fact, Barry does.

“I have been, and always will be, your friend,” he says simply.

The reaction is instantaneous. Cisco lowers his gun, and Hartley lowers his hands. Caitlin relaxes. Eobard’s head snaps around, and he stares at Barry in confusion.

“You’re late,” Cisco says.

“Sorry,” Barry says. “Things got _really_ fucked up in 2000.”

“What,” Eobard says blankly.

“Tell it when we’re secure,” Ronnie says. He comes up behind Barry, Dr. Stein following. “Come on in.”

Hartley presses another button on his remote, and a section of wall swings wide. The far side is well-lit, white, and absolutely bristling with both tech and scientific equipment.

“Welcome to the Rogues’ Gallery,” Cisco says with a flourish.

* * *

Hartley taps at the remote again, and the door closes up behind them.

“We’re sealed,” he says.

“You’ve made some improvements,” Eobard says, going immediately over to the central bank of computers and beginning to fiddle.

“We’ve had the time for it,” Cisco says dryly. “We started fortifying this place right after you guys left for 2000.”

That pulls Eobard out of his tech haze. He straightens back up and turns around, crossing his arms over his chest. “I would _love_ to know how you know about that.”

“Oh, that’s – that one’s me,” Barry says. “And I’ll explain, I really will, but could I maybe sit down?” He’s still feeling kind of weak.

“Caitlin,” Cisco snaps, while Ronnie brings up a chair.

“’M fine,” Barry tries to say.

“He just witnessed the murder of himself as a nine-year-old, seconds after the murder of his mother,” Eobard says. “He’s in shock.”

“That’s not all he’s in,” Caitlin says, waving a wand over Barry and frowning at a nearby display. “You got caught by the backlash, didn’t you?”

“Backlash?” Barry asks vaguely.

“The shockwave of a paradox,” Eobard says. “I got him into the speed force pretty quickly, but – ”

“It felt like it wanted to drag me backwards,” Barry reports. “I only felt it for a second.”

“I can see the residue,” Caitlin agrees. She reaches for a vial and a needle. “Okay, that’s fixable.”

“How do you know so much about it?” Eobard asks suspiciously, looking like he wants to leap across the room and get between Caitlin and Barry.

“We’ve been fighting a speedster for the last ten years,” Dr. Stein says. “Give us a little credit, please.”

“He’s messed with all of our personal timelines at this point,” Ronnie says. He turns slightly, showing off a small, green-glowing device about the size of a cell phone that he’s wearing on his belt. Barry glances around – Cisco has one on his shoulder; Dr. Stein has another in his shirt pocket like an old-school pocket protector. Caitlin, on closer inspection, is wearing a necklace that glows in a similar color. Hartley doesn’t have one visible, but Barry would bet that his gauntlets have received a few upgrades since 2014.

“Stabilizers?” Eobard comes over to peer at the one Ronnie is sporting. Caitlin shoots Barry up with something blue and viscous. Barry’s head starts to clear.

“Protects us from changes to the timeline,” Ronnie says.

“We rescued Ronnie and Dr. Stein right after you left,” Caitlin says. She tosses the sharp into an appropriate container and stows the vial back on its shelf, then pulls off her gloves and disposes of them, too. “Dr. Stein built the stabilizers.”

“It’s an adaptation of your own technology, Professor Thawne,” Dr. Stein says. “It bends the speed force around us slightly. We can’t tap into it as you and Mr. Allen can, but it buffers the effects of alterations to the timeline.”

“How long did it take you?” Eobard asks.

“A week to design. Another to fabricate.”

“Just in time, too,” Hartley says. “We had maybe a month between your disappearance – ” indicating Barry and Eobard “ – and your evil self’s _re_ appearance.”

“If you hadn’t gotten these up and running by the time he’d arrived…” Eobard shakes his head. “You’d have been deleted outright. Replaced with alternate versions of yourself.”

“We know,” Cisco says shortly.

Eobard, still examining Ronnie’s stabilizer, either doesn’t notice or disregards Cisco’s tone. “But the technology in these – the most cutting-edge research on the planet in 2014 doesn’t even begin to _approach_ – ”

“We had help,” Dr. Stein says.

“Who?”

“Not _who_. _What._ ” Cisco’s smile widens. “In fact, I think you two have already been introduced.”

“Good afternoon, Master Allen, Professor Thawne,” Gideon says.

“Gideon!” Eobard sounds surprised, and relieved, and even a little bit pleased. “You’re all right! I thought – ”

“I apologize for not answering you earlier. It took me a few moments to locate the old protocols for communicating with your wrist-mounted device, and then silence seemed prudent until the issue of your identity could be resolved.”

“Old protocols?” Eobard’s voice slows partway through. “Oh. You’re the Gideon of _this_ time.”

“I am your Gideon as well, Professor, I assure you.”

“You were communicating with Gideon _remotely_ when you went back to 2000,” Hartley says. “You jumped straight from 2000 to 2024, but Gideon had to take the long way through.”

“So you’re not the Gideon that the Flash of this time has built,” Eobard clarifies.

“I’m afraid not, Professor,” Gideon says. “That entity _also_ exists.”

“We were able to move our Gideon here as part of our early fortification of the Gallery,” Hartley says.

“Of course, evil you just built another one,” Caitlin says to Barry.

“But how did you know to move her?” Eobard sounds annoyed, which, Barry has learned, means he’s feeling out of control. “How did you know to do _any_ of this?”

Cisco looks at Barry. “Barry?”

“My letters,” Barry says. He sits up straighter. That blue stuff is working _fast_.

“Letters?” Eobard.

“I wrote letters. To everyone,” Barry says. “Well. Not everyone.” He shrugs apology to Hartley. “Sorry. I wasn’t sure whose team you’d be playing for.”

“That’s all right,” Hartley says. “I read the parts of Cisco’s letter that were for me.”

“My letter told me how to rescue Ronnie and Dr. Stein,” Caitlin says.

“Thanks for that, by the way,” Ronnie says.

“My pleasure,” Barry says sincerely.

“You left them letters,” Eobard says slowly. He, too, is staring at Barry. “You warned them.”

“Not enough,” Barry sighs. “I didn’t know everything my future self was capable of, when I wrote them.” Resolutely he pushes away the image of his younger self, broken and bleeding on the pavement. “And I warned them about you, too, Eobard. I’m sorry, but I still wasn’t sure how far I could trust you.”

“A wise precaution,” Eobard says without rancor.

“But there was a letter for you, in case you made it back and I didn’t.”

“We found it,” Cisco says. “We found them all.”

“Numbering them was very clever, by the way,” Hartley says. “We wouldn’t have known to get Henry’s back from the correctional system otherwise.”

“Where _is_ my father?” Barry asks. “Where are Joe, and Iris?”

There’s a dreadful silence. Everyone in the room looks at each other, or away from Barry.

Barry has to clear his throat before sound will come out. “Where’s my Dad?” he asks, and hates how small his voice sounds.

Another round of looks. “There was a fire at Iron Heights shortly after evil you appeared,” Ronnie says. “The fire department said it was an accident. Take it from me – it wasn’t.”

“No,” Barry whispers. He wants to cry, suddenly. His mother’s death is an old wound and his younger self’s death is a shock he can’t process. His father’s death is suddenly real, and immediate, and all too believable. “If I was going to be a villain anyway, why not break him out, why not _rescue_ him – ”

“He would never have kept quiet about what you were doing,” Dr. Stein says gently.

Barry’s hands come up to cover his mouth without his conscious direction. He breathes in and out, shuddering.

Eobard moves to stand next to Barry. Tentatively, as if he isn’t sure he’ll be permitted, he puts his hand on Barry’s shoulder. Barry frees one hand from covering his mouth and clutches at Eobard, who seems to get the message, leaning closer and sliding his other arm around Barry’s shoulders.

“I killed my father,” Barry whispers.

“I’m sorry,” Dr. Stein offers.

No one else dares to speak. Barry can’t, either. It’s left to Eobard to ask, “What about the Wests?”

“Iris is married to your alternate self,” Caitlin says. “And I don’t know what he’s got on her, but – ”

“They act lovey-dovey in public, until you want to hurl,” Hartley says. “They’re the darling of the media networks. The city’s hero – oh, yes, your identity’s public knowledge now – and its leading reporter. Prime clickbait.”

“But?” Barry makes himself ask, dreading the answer.

The others – excepting Eobard – all exchange looks. “But,” Cisco says. “Every time Iris is photographed in public, or appears on the news, she’s got some new cut or bruise or broken bone.”

“The story is that your – evil you’s – many enemies all try to get at him through Iris,” Ronnie says.

“The problem is, _we’re_ evil you’s many enemies,” Dr. Stein says. “And none of us have ever laid a finger on Iris.”

Barry remembers, as if from a very great distance away, thinking: _We’ll grow up next door to each other, the way it always should have been. And then who knows? Maybe it will all happen, just like I used to dream. Maybe we’ll fall in love in high school and go to prom together and get married right after college… Once I fix that, everything will be okay…_

Oh _God_.

Eobard’s arm tightens around Barry’s shoulders. “Joe?”

“Joe thought he could get Iris free of evil Barry,” Hartley says. “We found his body floating in the river three days later.”

“With a baggie in the pocket containing Iris’ letter,” Cisco adds.

“They got it to you,” Barry whispers.

“Yeah. Lucky thing, too. The letters were a good idea, but you probably shouldn’t have made them so different from each other. If we’d lost Iris’ letter for good we would never have known who in the police force could be trusted.”

Eobard pales. “Oh, God – Eddie?”

There’s a lot of grim faces around the room. “Vanished early on,” Hartley says. “No one’s quite sure what happened to him, but – ”

“Barry’s future self married Iris,” Dr. Stein says bluntly. “Eddie was competition.”

“And he’s my ancestor,” Eobard says flatly. “Kill him – kill me.”

“We told you,” Ronnie says. “Evil Barry’s been fucking around with the timeline.”

“But you’re still here, Thawne,” Dr. Stein says. “Doesn’t that mean that Eddie is still alive?”

“Unless you happened to get lucky and be speeding through time at the exact moment that evil Flash killed him,” Ronnie says doubtfully.

“That may be exactly what happened,” Eobard says. He frowns. “In 2014, we were measuring the effects of – er – evil Barry? Is that what we’re going with?”

There’s a round of shrugs.

“Of evil Barry, then, having killed his younger self. We were unaware of the other machinations. It’s possible that the other machinations didn’t occur until after we – my Barry and I – made our presence known to him in 2000.”

“In which case, from your point of view, it all took place during the few seconds of your run to 2024,” Dr. Stein says.

Eobard nods. “When I first came to 2024, things were bad, but not _this_ bad. Eddie was still alive. I checked up on him; I checked up on all my ancestors. And the Flash’s identity was not widely known. Now you say neither of those is the case.”

“This isn’t your original timeline,” Dr. Stein says. “For that matter, it isn’t any of ours, either.”

Ronnie shakes his head. “Yeah, that’s the part that never makes any sense to me.”

“I’ve explained this a dozen times!” Dr. Stein says. This is evidently an old argument, because the next thing Stein does is pull forward a dry-erase board already full of annotations. There’s a timeline at the center that starts in 1991 ( _BARRY ALLEN BORN_ , says the notation) and stretches all the way into the 22nd century. “See, here we have the original timeline – ”

“Oh, God, not this again,” Hartley sighs.

“I have to agree with Ronnie,” Caitlin says. “It doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me either.”

“That’s because you’re telling it out of order,” Eobard says, eying the dry erase board critically. He steps forward and holds out his hand. “May I?”

Stein looks mortally offended, but that’s pretty much a default look for him, and after a moment in which no one comes forward to defend Stein’s timeline explicating skills he huffs a sigh and surrenders the dry-erase marker. “If you insist.” He retreats back out of the way and takes a chair of his own, near Barry’s.

Eobard picks up the eraser and wipes the board clean. Then he draws a smaller, blank timeline in and annotates it: 2000, 2014, 2024, 2175.

“Once upon a time,” he says, one corner of his mouth quirking in a grin, “There was a boy named Barry Allen.”

“The one and only,” Cisco says sourly. Barry would like to be offended, but he simply can’t muster the energy. Nor the self-righteousness.

This Cisco had never really gotten to know a ‘good’ Barry. They’d never had the movie nights and the maker sessions. Never pitted their wits against their enemies’ and come out triumphant. Never stayed up late drinking too much coffee telling secrets like teenagers having a sleepover. Barry had never put the energy in to rebuilding his friendships with Cisco and Caitlin. Ronnie and Dr. Stein had been rescued after Barry had left. Hartley had been recruited after Barry had left. They don’t know Barry. Not really.

Barry can look around the room and watch the way everyone avoids his eye. They’re all trying to be nice about it, and the fact that they’d been forewarned of evil Flash’s, well, evilness because of Barry’s letters is helping. But they’re all taking Barry’s ‘goodness’ on faith, after ten years of lived experience with a Barry who thinks murdering and maiming is all in a day’s work.

Barry had thought it wouldn’t matter. That he’d be resetting the timeline. That these versions of his friends would vanish, to be replaced with other versions – versions Barry had foolishly thought would be ‘truer’ in some mystical, ill-defined way.

Now he needs their help to stop his evil self, and he doesn’t know if they’ll give it to him.

Eobard is picking up a second marker – a red marker – and starts drawing a path through the timeline. “ _This_ Barry Allen grew up with both of his parents. Went to college, became a forensics investigator, married his childhood sweetheart Iris. And then, circa 2020, thanks to a particle accelerator explosion, he gained superspeed and became the Flash.”

Caitlin raises her hand. “Uh, but the particle accelerator exploded in 2014?”

“Not originally it didn’t.” Eobard ties that line off with a flourish. “This is the original particle accelerator. The one built by the original Harrison Wells. It explodes in 2020.”

Cisco and Hartley exchange troubled looks. Ronnie frowns. Barry keeps his focus on Eobard, who continues.

“This Flash began his career as a hero. But power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. By the time I met him, in 2024, he was no hero any longer. The trouble was that no one else recognized that.”

“Like in our timeline,” Ronnie says.

Eobard raises a hand and tilts it from side to side. “The lot of you would seem to give the lie to that,” he says. “When I first met the Flash, you were all his friends and allies. Now you’re his enemies. The timeline is still in flux.”

“How did it happen?” Barry asks.

Eobard turns to face him. “Are you asking me what slid your original self from the path of righteousness and down the thorny and flowery road to villainy?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t know.” Eobard shakes his head. “He was already like that when I arrived. And at this point, trying to trace back the layers of changes to the timeline to retrieve the original would be like building a tower out of sand.”

“You’re saying we may never know.”

“Yes.”

“Okay, I call bogus,” Cisco says. “In the original timeline, the Flash started out as a hero, right? And we, in that timeline, we were his friends. How did we not notice that our hero had suddenly become a villain?”

“How does any public scandal involving a prominent, highly respected individual play out?” Eobard shrugs. “Rot begins from the inside and works its way out. The shiny public persona simply is the last to go.”

Barry nods. He understands that. Far too well. He’s seen that play out before, in his original timeline, with his Thawne – his Dr. Wells. Barry had been one of the people who had refused to believe that his hero had been something less than he’d seemed. And he’d seen how Cisco and Caitlin had doubted, too. Had questioned. Had refused to believe.

Caitlin had almost warned Thawne that they were on to him, convinced that there must be _some_ explanation. It’s no problem for Barry to understand how Team Flash, with no such betrayal in their past, with years of friendship and bonds between them, would play that scenario out if it were Barry who had turned on them.

Eobard adds, “The Flash had help in maintaining his public image. He had a villain. A nemesis, on whom his own evil deeds could be blamed.”

He picks up a second marker. Yellow. Starts a timeline running in reverse, beginning in 2175.

“Once upon a time there was a boy named Eobard Thawne,” Eobard says. “This boy had two hobbies. Theoretical chronodynamics, and the Flash.”

“At this point those are basically the same hobby,” Cisco mutters.

“As it turns out,” Eobard agrees. “In researching the Flash, I discovered a number of references to his ability to travel through time, which had obvious applications to chronodynamics. Pursuing those references and attempting to test and reproduce them in my laboratory led to the accident that gave me my speed.”

“So you had your own lab?” Caitlin asks. “In the future?”

“Gideon doesn’t call me ‘professor’ for kicks. I was head researcher for the physics department of Opal City University.”

“Hmm,” Dr. Stein says, with markedly more respect than before.

“You gained superspeed,” Barry says, bringing the conversation back to the point.

“And naturally the first thing I did with it was attempt to visit the time period in which my childhood hero had been active.” The yellow line loops back and intersects with the red line in 2024. “Only to discover how little of a hero he actually was.”

Eobard controls himself well. There’s only the faintest ugly shadow in his voice when he names that Flash _hero_. Probably the others don’t even notice it. Barry does. But he’s listening for it.

 _I’m sorry_ , he wants to say, uselessly.

“So you, what, became a vigilante freedom fighter trying to stop him?” Ronnie asks.

Eobard’s laugh is self-deprecating, but thankfully not malicious. “I was a pampered academic whose idea of a fight was competing for research grants,” he says bluntly. “I took what I’d learned and went back to my own time, intending to expose the Flash as a fraud. I’m afraid I was thinking less of the needs of the people of 2024 and more of my own disillusionment.”

Dr. Stein is nodding. “So what happened?”

“My attempts to discredit the Flash didn’t work. Time travel was not admitted as a primary source, and the records of the period all upheld the popular myth of the Flash-as-hero. I went back to 2024 again several times, trying to gather additional proof. But the Flash’s legacy was too strong. And the man himself became aware of my attempts to discredit him. He began to oppose me directly.”

“That’s when you became a villain?” Cisco’s the one who speaks, and the way he says _villain_ is as telling, in its own way, as the way Eobard had said _hero._ Barry realizes, suddenly, that for this group of people it simply isn’t real. It’s just hearsay. They’d never been betrayed by a man posing as Harrison Wells. They’d never grown close to Barry; the news of Thawne’s responsibility for Nora Allen’s death wouldn’t be personal to them. All they know is that their mentor, their friend, had suddenly vanished one day, along with the boy who’d become the Flash. Everything else they’ve gotten from Barry’s letters. Barely trustworthy sources, to this group – and Barry had frankly not allocated much page space to Eobard, not when there had been his own future self to warn about.

No one else here looks at Eobard and sees the Reverse Flash. It’s Barry they’re all watching out of the corner of their eyes, waiting for the moment when _he’s_ going to snap. They’re afraid of the speedster in their midst, all right. But not the one in the yellow suit.

It’s a sobering realization. Barry doesn’t much like how it feels.

Eobard, meanwhile, is shaking his head. He picks up a third marker, blue this time, and draws a circle around 2024. “I redoubled my efforts to find proof – hard proof, proof that the academic circles of the future would accept. I came close. Too close. The Flash had to act, or be exposed. That’s – well.” He sighs. “That’s when I became a villain in truth, and the Flash’s bitterest enemy.”

“What did the Flash do?” Hartley demands.

Eobard hesitates briefly before answering, and Barry knows he’s going to lie, or at least downplay the truth. He jumps in before Eobard can.

“Damaged Eobard’s connection to the speed force,” Barry says bluntly. “Took away his ability to travel through time. Trapped him in 2024.”

Part of him is hoping against hope that this revelation will elicit shock in his listeners. Maybe even a little disbelief. That they will find this difficult to believe, and faintly horrifying. Someone might even gasp.

No one gasps. Dr. Stein nods grimly; that’s about it. Everyone else takes this news in stride. As if their Flash maims enemy speedsters every day. As if this is perfectly in line with what they know their Flash to be capable of.

“I devised a method to, ah, ‘borrow’ the Flash’s connection to the speed force, restoring my abilities as long as I remained in sync with him.” Eobard arranges the yellow marker and the red one between two neighboring fingers, then draws the hop between 2024 and 2000. “I tricked the Flash into returning to his own past, thereby allowing me to travel to that time as well. My original intention was to murder him as a child. When he prevented me from doing that, I murdered his mother instead.”

Eobard says this steadily, without flinching or attempting to hide. Looking around, Barry sees now on several faces the disbelief he’d been hoping to see before.

“The letters said so, but – ” Hartley begins, visibly dismayed.

“They were quite accurate, I’m certain,” Eobard cuts him off. He’s settled into granite, not meeting anyone’s eyes, avoiding condemnation and comfort in equal measure. “You are familiar with this portion of the story, I believe. I murdered Harrison Wells and took his place, building the particle accelerator more rapidly than he had been able to manage, such that it exploded in 2014 – as you all recall. Shortly thereafter the timelines diverged again.”

Eobard considers the marker colors available to him, and selects purple. “Barry, do you want to fill us in?”

Succinctly Barry describes his timeline of origin. The first year he’d spent as a Flash. He omits details of friendships that don’t exist, and leaves out much of his own personal feelings to boot. Dr. Wells’ – Eobard’s – betrayal he glosses over as well. He confines his telling to the events that had led him to make his first time jump back to the night Nora had died.

“I went back intending to save my mother,” Barry concludes as Eobard draws the purple line in an arc from 2015 to 2000, “only to find that my future self knew I was going to be there.” Barry still remembers the moment, clear as anything. The other speedster turning his head. Looking right at Barry. Shaking his head: _no._ “Future me warned me off. And I listened to him!” Barry hears the anger in his own voice, even as the realization of betrayal comes finally home to him. “I thought he was like me, I didn’t know he was evil – I let him stop me from saving Mom!”

“Which left the field clear for him to murder his child self.” Eobard draws a blue star in 2000 and annotates it: _paradox_.

“I didn’t know that yet,” Barry says. “But I knew that my future self had warned me off. I wanted to know why, so I tried to follow him back to 2024, but I didn’t make it. I ended up in 2014 instead.”

“The changes your future self had made to the timeline had already begun to take effect.” Eobard picks up the eraser again. With a sweep of his wrist, everything vanishes, except for three isolated islands in time and space: 2000, 2014, 2024.

Barry says, “I landed in 2014.”

Eobard nods. “Where we teamed up to fix the timeline, traveling back into 2000 – ” once more the purple and yellow lines make the journey – “and witnessed the Flash of this time creating the largest paradox of all. Whereupon we travelled here.”

Eobard picks up the eraser one more time. With an air of finality he wipes 2014 from the timeline.

“Paradoxes are ugly things,” he says. “They destroy everything that doesn’t directly contribute to them – or anything that isn’t protected,” he adds, gesturing to the stabilizers that glow faintly from the shoulders or necks or wrists of the non-speedsters in the room. “At this point I would be very surprised if any of the points in time between 2000 and 2024 are stable enough to visit anymore.”

“Are you saying that there are entire chunks of the timeline that just don’t exist?” Caitlin demands.

“They exist in that they must produce the products of existence,” Eobard says pedantically. A quick glance at the blank faces around the room, and he sighs. “There is a city full of people out there,” Eobard clarifies, “and they all remember existing in the years between 2000 and 2024. They were born, they got married, they graduated from college, they held jobs. They remember living through those times; _ergo_ those times occurred. But they are not currently _occurring,_ not the way other points in time before 2000 or after 2024 are always simultaneously occurring along the time-space continuum. Their effects remain valid because _this_ time exists, and this time is the logical result of that time. Their actuality, however, has been wiped away.”

“I think I am now _more_ confused than when you started,” Ronnie says ruefully. Eobard opens his mouth, like he’s going to try again, and Ronnie holds up a hand to forestall him. “No, never mind. I don’t need to understand all the whys and wherefores. Just answer me this: how are we going to _fix_ it?”

“That depends on how you define ‘fix it’,” Eobard says. “If you just want to bring peace to Central City, you keep going like you’ve been going. Oppose the Flash. Break his power. Expose him as a fraud, and put something better in his place.” He caps the marker he’s holding. “If that’s what you want to do… I’ll help.”

Eobard avoids looking at Barry. If this is meant to keep Barry from noticing what Eobard’s just offered, it doesn’t work.

“And what if we want more?” Cisco says. He steps forward, just enough that all eyes are drawn to him. The air in the room grows expectant. Everyone – with the notable exceptions of Eobard and Barry – are waiting to hear what he’s going to say. Everyone is waiting to take their direction from him.

Somewhere in the last ten years Cisco’s learned how to command a room. Somewhere in the last ten years he’s learned to lead.

Now Cisco says, “What if we want to turn the clock all the way back? Restore the original timeline? Give everyone back their normal lives?”

“Can it even be done?” Caitlin asks doubtfully.

“Yes,” Eobard says promptly.

“How?” Cisco demands.

“You’re not going to like it.”

“Try me.”

“I can only think of one way.”

“Which is – ”

“Go to the heart.” Eobard tosses the marker he’s holding aside. It lands on a nearby console, skittering briefly downwards until it comes to rest against the edge of the display and stops. “We’ve been nibbling around the edges of this. Nora Allen’s death, young Barry’s death, Eddie and Joe and Henry – they’re all effects. Effects that are then causes in their own right, but first and foremost effects all the same. We have to go to the root. The proximate cause. We have to solve _real_ problem.”

“How?”

Eobard turns back to the dry-erase board. Picks up the eraser one final time and wipes the two remaining islands off the board. In the sudden blankness, he picks up the black marker and draws in a blank timeline. No annotations.

“Undo the whole thing,” Eobard says. “Go back to the beginning, and remove it at its root.”

Everyone else still looks confused.

But Barry gets it. Sees it all, in a single moment of clarity.

So he says it out loud.

“We have to kill the Flash.”


	9. Chapter 9

There’s a moment of silence. Then the room erupts with a roar.

“If that would work it would – ”

“Don’t you think we’ve _tried_ – ”

“Rip the timeline to shreds – ”

“Guarded day and night – ”

“You couldn’t even – ”

Eobard ignores them all. His gaze is fixed on Barry.

“The definition of insanity is said to be trying the same thing over and over again while expecting a different result,” he remarks. It sounds like idle conversation. Barry does not mistake it for such.

Neither does Dr. Stein. “That also sounds like the definition of scientific research,” he says. “Testing the same process under different conditions to determine the limits of its effects.”

“Just to be clear,” Barry says, “We’re not talking about killing the Flash here in 2024.” Everyone else falls silent, one by one, until it’s Barry who commands everyone’s attention. “We’re talking about going back in time and killing the Flash at the beginning of it all.”

“Technically the beginning of it all would be the original 2024.” It’s Stein’s turn to be pedantic, apparently. “But since we can’t access that – ”

“We go back to the earliest moment along the evil Flash’s timeline that we _can_ access.”

“The night in 2000 when he came back in time to kill himself,” Eobard says.

“That means time travel,” Cisco says. “I’m not sure I trust – ”

“I’ll do it,” Eobard interrupts. “You trust me, right?” _You still think of me as Harrison Wells,_ he doesn’t say, though Barry hears it anyway.

“You’re better,” is as far as Cisco will commit himself. “But – ”

“You can’t do it,” Barry says to Eobard. He tries to say it as gently as possible. He only realizes that gentleness was probably the wrong tack to take when Eobard’s head swerves around and their gazes lock. Eobard doesn’t look offended. He looks betrayed. He looks _furious_.

“I forbid it,” Eobard snaps.

Barry has to laugh at that, incredulously, because, really? “Eobard, you can’t _forbid_ me.”

“Watch me.” Eobard crosses his arms over his chest, and he is never going to get away with calling Barry stubborn again, not with the mulish expression on his face. “You’ve never killed anyone in your life and I refuse to let you start now. I can do it. As long as he dies, what does it matter who kills him?”

 _Oh,_ Barry realizes. _He doesn’t get it yet._ He’d just assumed that Eobard had understood everything in the same moment Barry had. If they’d still been connected, of course Eobard would have gotten Barry’s understanding directly from him; but even still, _Eobard_ is the professor of physics, the specialist in chronodynamics who’d been able to recreate the particle accelerator explosion twice. Eobard is the one who’d first developed the theory of using a paradox to reset the timeline. Eobard is the one who’d taught Barry how to use his speed; who’d been behind every innovation, technological or scientific, that had saved the day or at the very least driven disaster further off to be grappled with again.

Eobard keeps glaring at Barry. He’s visibly angry, much angrier than the situation warrants. But at the same time there’s something very much like fear lurking in the way the corner of his mouth ticks up. In the way his hands shake slightly. In the way he stands, stiff and uncompromising, even though he has to know he’s being overbearing and irrational.

Barry sees: it’s not that Eobard _doesn’t_ know why it has to be Barry who kills the evil Flash in 2000. It’s that Eobard is resisting the knowledge with every ounce of his formidable capacity for self-control.

“Time becomes squishy around a major disruption,” Barry says, gentle still, because if they fight over this they’ll both lose, and Barry is going to need Eobard’s support. “You told me that, Eobard. That’s what folded me in to the timeline back in 2014. _That_ happened by accident. But I could have made that happen on purpose, couldn’t I? I could have taken advantage of the disruption to alter things more aggressively.”

There’s a struggle visible on Eobard’s face, which in its own way is telling: Eobard is terrifyingly good at concealing his emotions, when he puts his mind to it.

“Eobard. Tell me, please.”

“Yes,” Eobard says eventually. Quietly. “With yourself at the epicenter, and time malleable, you could have shaped the resulting timeline however you chose.”

“However – ” Hartley’s voice rises at the end of the word, and he falls abruptly silent.

“That’s why this timeline is so much worse than the one you found when you first traveled back to 2024.” Barry nods to himself, additional pieces falling into place. He turns to the rest of the room. “When Eobard first met evil me, evil me was still an amateur. He’d never had another speedster around to learn from. Evil me had to figure out everything about his abilities himself. He’d begun using his speed to seize power, but he was limited in what he accomplished. Until Eobard arrived.”

Horror starts to dawn on Eobard’s face.

Barry speaks to him directly now, leaving the others out, irrelevant spectators in a conversation that predates their existence by a unit of measure they won’t comprehend. “In any timeline you teach me. It’s just that sometimes you don’t realize you’re doing it. When you conned my future self into thinking you were going to kill me as a child, and tricked him into bringing you back to 2000, he probably did some research of his own. Figured out the kind of power a paradox could bring him.”

Eobard stares at Barry. With a sudden, shocking movement, he throws the eraser he’s still holding against the wall.

“He didn’t go back to 2000 out of some noble to desire to stop me,” Eobard says bleakly.

“If I’m right,” Barry says, “He went back because he thought the idea of murdering himself as a child was a dandy one, and intended to do it before you could.”

“And he waved you off – ”

“Because he thought I was there for the same purpose.” Barry laughs. It sounds choked and raspy even to his own ears. “He wasn’t warning me off to protect the timeline, or because he had some other, better plan, or for any other noble reason I could think of.”

“He was threatening you.” Under the fluorescent lighting of the Rogues’ Gallery everyone looks washed-out, but the tight corners of Eobard’s mouth are like bruises, they’re drawn so deep. “He thought that you were the same as he was. He didn’t know that I was going to kill your mother. He didn’t know how that would change your life. He saw another Barry Allen in another Flash suit and assumed that you were competition for the paradox’s power.”

“It’s funny,” Barry says distantly. “If he hadn’t waved me off, I would never have gone looking for my answers. I would have just gone back to my time and been quietly deleted when the paradox hit. Instead, here I am opposing him…”

“If he hadn’t waved you off, you would have stopped me from killing your mother,” Eobard says quietly. “He had to act. Even if that action laid the seeds for you to oppose him.”

“What was that proverb you like so much?” Barry says to Eobard. “‘You often meet your fate on the road you take to avoid it’? Very apt.”

“I’m so sorry,” Eobard says.

There’s a moment of silence, broken by Caitlin’s cough.

“There’s one thing I still don’t quite get,” she says apologetically.

“Only _one_ thing?” Ronnie mutters.

“You’re talking about the power of paradoxes. And it makes sense that anything that can drastically rewrite the timeline _has_ power. But how could the Flash – ” with a glance at Barry – “the _evil_ Flash, how could he _control_ that power?”

Neither Eobard nor Barry answer. It’s left to Dr. Stein to step into the gap, and his answer shows that he’s had no difficulty in following the conversation, or in grasping its implications.

“Think of wet cement,” Dr. Stein says. “Think of the way you can draw in it, until it sets. Once it’s set it’s difficult to alter, but in that brief window of malleability, the possibilities are nearly infinite.”

Eobard says quietly, “The window for wielding it passes quickly – too quickly for an ordinary human to even notice – but not too quickly for a speedster to seize, if they’re smart and if they know it’s coming.”

“Evil Flash killed his younger self, and used the power from that paradox to create _this_ 2024, in which his power is greater and stronger than it had originally been,” Caitlin summarizes.

“So we do the same thing,” Barry says. “I kill the Flash, force the paradox, and use the wet-cement window to put everything back the way it was.”

Once again everyone’s eyes are on Barry. Slowly, heads begin to nod.

“I have to do it,” Barry says. He can hear the note of naked pleading in his voice, directed at Eobard.

When Eobard doesn’t react, Barry turns to Dr. Stein. “Right?”

“To the limits of my understanding, you are quite correct.”

“Gideon?”

“I concur, Master Allen,” Gideon says.

“I’ll need help,” Barry says to Cisco and the others, trying to ignore the way Eobard is still and silent as a stone, standing beside the dry-erase board. “Current-evil me will try to stop me, if he can. You’ll need to keep him busy here. So busy that he doesn’t notice what I’m doing, if possible. But definitely too busy to follow me back.”

“And we should trust you,” Cisco says. It’s not quite a question, but definitely more than a statement. “We should trust that you’re going to do what you say you’re going to do. We should expend our resources and risk our lives on the gamble that you’re going to be _nicer_ when you’re rewriting our timelines?”

“Look, I can appreciate your hesitation,” Barry says candidly. “But I can’t think of another way to do this.”

He’s still watching Eobard, out of the corner of his eye. Eobard, who hasn’t spoken, who’s barely moved, since Barry had proven that it had to be he who commits cold-blooded murder.

“Your plan is… intriguing,” Cisco says diplomatically. “We’ll consider it.”

Barry lets his head dip in acknowledgement, but that doesn’t stop him from saying, somewhat sternly, “We only have so long before evil me figures out where Eobard and I ran to after leaving 2000. He’ll find us. And then you’ll have a fight on your hands whether you want to or not.”

“There are bunks down at the end of the hall,” Cisco says inflexibly. “Hartley will show you the way.”

“And lock us in?”

Cisco’s smile flashes. “Aren’t you clever.”

Barry presses his lips together. But he and Eobard are outnumbered – even assuming that Eobard will act in concert with Barry, which right now, Barry can’t be sure of – and besides, Barry doesn’t _want_ to fight. He needs their help. He wants their support. He doesn’t have any choice but to yield, if he wants to get it.

Hartley steps forward. “Gentlemen?”

Barry turns towards the exit.

Eobard falls into step behind him. But he still doesn’t say a word.

* * *

Cisco may have described the room Barry and Eobard are taken to as ‘bunks’, but it’s obviously a cell nonetheless, albeit a more nicely-equipped one than those in the Pipeline. Hartley watches them walk into it with a neutral expression that does nothing to hide the threat in the way he holds his gauntlets. He activates a force-field when Barry and Eobard are safely inside.

“Hartley,” Barry says. “It’s the only way.”

“We’ll be back to let you know our decision,” Hartley says, turning and leaving without another word.

Barry watches him go and sighs. _How many times am I going to make the same mistake?_ He’s been outside of his own timeline for, subjectively, months, but Barry keeps expecting people to act and think like the versions of them _he’d_ known. From expecting Joe and Iris to help him go home the morning after he’d woken up from his ‘coma’ all the way through now. Writing the letters for the others had seemed like such a clever move. Updating them on the situation, giving them the entire messy truth, warning them to begin protecting themselves in case the monstrous Flash from Eobard’s memories was real – establishing the passphrase, the reference to _The Wrath of Khan_ , so they could tell ‘their’ Barry apart from the evil one –

Barry had never expected things to get this bad, this quickly, to be sure. He’d thought he’d been warning them against what might happen if either of the speedsters from 2024 had attempted to travel to 2014 and wreak havoc there. They’re all lucky that this timeline’s Team Flash are apparently suspicious bastards who hadn’t hesitated to go full-on _la resistance_ when they’d first felt themselves threatened.

Barry had just never expected them to fear _him_ , too.

And Eobard –

“Whatever it is you want to say to me,” Barry says quietly, turning to face Eobard, “go ahead and say it.”

Eobard has taken a seat on one of the fold-up cots the room is equipped with. There’s four of them in the room and nothing else; this space has more the feel of a holding cell than something intended for long-term incarceration, which raises the question of what Cisco’s group – _Rogues_ , they’d called themselves – do with prisoners. The mere existence of this place implies that they take prisoners in the first place. Barry feels slightly ashamed of the relief that inspires in him, but given that his other self is apparently guilty of patricide, wife-beating and maiming – and given that Barry has already misjudged this group of people once already – a little relief that they don’t kill their enemies outright suddenly doesn’t seem so unmerited.

Hopefully they don’t just interrogate first and kill second, either. Hopefully there are an array of cells elsewhere in this compound holding longer-term prisoners.

Hopefully.

Eobard still hasn’t answered.

“I get that you’re angry,” Barry tries again. “I’m just not sure – ”

“You’re not sure,” Eobard says to the wall over Barry’s shoulder, tone inflectionless, as if he’s commenting on the weather.

Barry winces.

“Do you know what it’s like to kill someone?” Eobard turns his head that precise centimeter to the right, so that his gaze can bore into Barry’s with a force that’s very nearly tangible. “You’re planning it in advance, so you’ll have time to think about it. To anticipate it. But whatever you might imagine will be wrong.”

Eobard leans back a little. Crosses one leg over the other. Clasps his hands over his knee. Smiles.

“It’s nothing like it is on television,” he says. “It will be hard. Whatever method you choose, it will be hard. Even if you use a gun. That trigger will weigh a thousand pounds. The first time, that is. After that it will be light as a feather.”

“Eobard – ”

“But you won’t use a gun, not to kill a speedster. Even _you’re_ fast enough to dodge a bullet.” The ugly way Eobard says _you’re_ sends shivers down Barry’s spine. “You’ll have to kill him at speed. Which means you’ll have to use your bare hands. How will you do it? Snap his neck? Do you know how much force that takes? You won’t be able to get any leverage, you know. That weakens your hold. You’re not trained in hand-to-hand. You don’t want to do anything fancy. Same for strangulation. Too easy for him to escape. He escapes, and you’re the one who’s dead.”

Barry swallows hard. He’s been trying not to think about that part.

“So you’ll go for the tried and true.” Eobard raises one of his hands. Lets it vibrate. Laughs, horribly, at the way Barry instinctively flinches back.

“How sweet. Your other self won’t flinch, you know. He’s done this before. Oh, I forgot! You saw him do it.”

The too-familiar burning is back behind Barry’s eyes. “Why are you saying this to me?”

“Because you need to _know_.” Eobard stands up abruptly. Stalks towards Barry, predatory and forceful. Barry backs up until he hits the wall. Then there’s nowhere else for him to go. Nothing to do but tremble as Eobard lays his hand over Barry’s heart, just to the left of the lightning bolt emblem on his chest.

Every instinct Barry has tells him to run. Failing that, to attack. His instincts shriek that Eobard is dangerous. That Barry is threatened.

Barry forces them to silence. If Eobard wanted to kill him, in this cell, there would be nothing Barry could do to stop him.

Instead he remembers the taste of Eobard’s lips on his. Remembers the disbelieving, exultant possession he’d felt from Eobard in the speed force. Remembers the soft way Eobard had caressed him, when he’d felt safe and secure enough to do so.

And stays still.

Even when Eobard’s hand starts vibrating, Barry stays still.

“Human bone is about five times stronger than steel,” Eobard says softly. “The sternum is stronger still. So you won’t be able to use force. You’ll have to phase _through_ your target.”

“You taught me how to do that,” Barry whispers.

Eobard’s smile tightens. Stretches, until it’s obvious just how much of a mask it is.

“And did I teach you,” he says, “that while you’re partly phased through an object, any force applied to that object is applied equally to you?”

Barry swallows. “No – ”

“You will feel it,” Eobard says. He lets his hand come to a stop. Closes that last little bit of space between them, until they’re pressed together, as close as they’d been at STAR Labs, and the charge between them is electric. “When you squeeze his heart within his chest, and every particle of him seizes up, you’ll feel it. You’ll feel it when his lungs burst. You’ll feel it when he screams. And when he dies – ” Eobard’s lips touch Barry’s ear; his voice drops, until Barry has to strain to hear. “ – you’ll feel the shock of that, too. Some part of it will stay with you, even after you pull free. Your molecules will forever spin just that little bit faster, from the force of his death. Not enough to measure. No one else would believe you, if you told them that. But it will be true. You’ll know it in your bones. You’ll know it until the day you die.”

Eobard steps back. Barry has to consciously fight to keep from shaking. He’s already lost the fight against the wetness that burns in his eyes.

“That’s what you want to do to yourself,” Eobard says. “That’s the price of your utopia.”

“Why did you tell me that?” Barry demands. He’s angry, now, too, rage rapidly replacing fear in his blood. Some part of him recognizes it as a defense mechanism. A response to having been cornered. “I have to do it! There’s no other way! So _why tell me that_?”

“You asked why I was angry,” Eobard says. He returns to the cot he’d staked out. It’s like a switch has flipped. He’s back to being calm and collected. As if they’re discussing science. No. That’s not quite right. When Eobard talks science, he gets excited. It’s as if they’re talking about something far more mundane. Something that bores him.

Eobard swings his legs up on the bunk and reclines. “I’m going to get some sleep.”

“Eobard – ”

“Gideon? Lights, please.”

“But – ”

The lights in the cell go out.

“Good night, Mister Allen,” Eobard says in the darkness.

Barry presses his hands against his mouth to stop himself from speaking again. From asking for comfort.

If Eobard had wanted to offer Barry comfort, he wouldn’t have told Barry the truth.

Barry doesn’t take one of the remaining cots. He just slides down onto the smooth hard floor of the cell and tries to stop crying.

* * *

The lights coming back up hurt. Barry’s managed to get himself back under some kind of control, but the salt trails left by the tears burn under the halogen bulbs.

“We’ve made a decision,” Cisco says. The rest of his team are arrayed around him, supportive.

Barry scrubs his hands over his face in a futile attempt to hide the evidence of his emotional breakdown. “Uh,” he says eloquently.

Eobard, sitting up from the cot he’d staked out, manages to counterfeit composure much more believably. Barry doesn’t think Cisco notices the thin sharp lines of tension around Eobard’s eyes, or the way the corners of his mouth still tighten into pockets of darkness.

“I assume you’ve decided to go along with this insane idea,” Eobard says. The bite in his voice will be noticeable to anyone listening.

“The science is sound,” Dr. Stein says.

“Gideon vouches for you,” Ronnie says. “She says you’ll keep your word.”

“I will,” Barry says.

“ _We_ will,” Eobard says.

Cisco raises an eyebrow. “I thought you didn’t approve of this plan.”

“My approval or lack thereof appears to have very little to do with it.” Eobard stands. He doesn’t look at Barry. Barry, looking at Eobard, hates the way part of him aches for just a second of acknowledgement. “You’ve all agreed to go along with it; I have little choice.”

“You have complete choice,” Caitlin says. “Gideon told us about the devices you and Barry are using to share your connection to the speed force. She said Barry can’t go back in time that far without your help. If you refuse – ”

Barry stiffens. He’d forgotten. Fool that he is, idiot, he’d forgotten that he needs Eobard’s help to travel back to the year 2000. Eobard can undermine the plan entirely simply by refusing to run.

“Eobard – ” he says, scrambling to his feet, not sure what he’s going to say but sure that he has to try. As much as Barry is afraid, as much as Eobard’s words have been burrowing under his skin, the picture they paint all too vivid, as much as Barry _knows_ Eobard is right about how killing the other Flash will change him, it’s still the only way.

Eobard had been right. Barry’s jump from 2015 to 2000, his jump forward to 2014, those are already no longer the only instances of time travel in Barry’s life. Barry has no doubt anymore there will be others, even after he triggers the paradox and resets the timeline. He has no doubts that anything Eobard has said to him is anything less than the truth. But Barry’s a terrible speedster, in the end. He’s never developed that all-important _perspective_. He can’t disassociate himself, the ‘good’ him, from the evil him.

This is Barry’s fault. All of it, even the parts that are the fault of the evil him that predates his own existence. Every death. Every maiming. Every hand the other him has laid on Iris. Every life ruined. It’s his fault. He has to do whatever it takes to fix it.

Even if that means murder.

Perspective aside, it’s apparently not as if it will be the first time.

Eobard is looking at Barry. Really looking at him. Barry wants to wilt with relief. Eobard doesn’t even look angry, anymore. His shoulders are slumped, and Barry sees again the same tired bitterness Eobard had worn like a shroud the morning after their last run on Mercury Labs. When Barry had come in bearing a peace offering from Jitters, and found Eobard still in the Time Vault, fighting a losing battle against an inexorable tide.

Barry wishes he’d kissed Eobard then. He wishes he dared to kiss Eobard now. He wants to make as many good things as he can, with the Barry Allen who is standing here now, before he changes the spin of his molecules forever.

“If we had time,” Eobard says to Barry, quiet and strong like a promise, “I’d tear this city apart to find another way.”

“We don’t,” Cisco says shortly. “As Barry said. It’s only a matter of time until the evil Flash realizes where you two have holed up, and throws everything he has into getting you.”

“I know.”

Barry dares to take a step forward. Away from the wall. Toward Eobard. “You’ll help?”

Eobard closes his eyes briefly and sighs. “I’ll help.”

There’s a flicker and the buzz of electronics resetting. The forcefield keeping them in the cell vanishes.

“Then come on,” Cisco says. “We have a lot to plan.”

* * *

Planning lasts the rest of the day and into what Gideon assures them all is night. Barry had jumped in surprise when she’d lowered the lights the first time, thinking that it was a sign of power drain, that they were under attack. But no one else had reacted, so after a moment he’d calmed down and asked.

“I cycle the lightning to match the solar cycle of Central City,” Gideon explains. “I will also be adjusting the tint and color to better mimic what is found aboveground.”

“Helps with maintaining Circadian rhythms,” Caitlin says. “Much healthier for you.”

“Also makes sure your eyes are adjusted right if you have to leave,” Ronnie says, more practically. “Same reason they dim the lights before takeoff and landing in airplanes.”

“I always wondered why they did that,” Eobard says in passing. “Air travel is very different when I grew up.”

Barry keeps his gaze on the readout he’s studying – an updated map of Central City, necessary terrain to know for evading the evil Flash and getting up the necessary speed to make the run back to the year 2000. He doesn’t let his eyes follow Eobard like a lovesick puppy as Eobard walks back over to Dr. Stein and Hartley. He doesn’t invent a question to ask that will keep Eobard nearby for a few moments longer. He definitely doesn’t swallow his pride and his shame and just ask Eobard to stay.

“So,” Cisco says at Barry’s side. “You two, huh?”

Barry twitches. “Uh.”

“Dr. Wells is a great man,” Cisco says. He scowls at Barry. “Whatever name he’s calling himself by now.”

Barry briefly considers trying to explain, again, that the Dr. Wells Cisco had thought he’d known had been an illusion. That Eobard Thawne has far more blood on his hands than the Barry Cisco is talking to right now. That if anyone is going to hurt anyone, it’s not going to be Barry hurting Eobard.

Then Barry remembers the look on Eobard’s face, in the cell when he’d told Barry why he’d been angry, and realizes just how wrong he is. So instead Barry just nods.

Cisco goes on, “I’ve seen what the _other_ you thinks is appropriate behavior towards someone you claim to love.” His scowl deepens, and he pokes Barry in the chest, right above the lightning bolt, none too gently. “So, _Flash_. You break it, you bought it.” Cisco pauses. Clarifies, “In the ‘bought the farm’ sense of the phrase. Feel me?”

“Yes,” Barry says.

“Okay.” Cisco unfolds his arms and picks up his datapad again, though not without giving Barry another stern look.

“What are you working on?” Barry asks, trying to promote fellow feeling in his uncertain allies.

“Tying up evil Gideon,” Cisco says. “We need to keep her occupied, or else she’ll be able to wreak a lot of havoc, and probably free evil you up to chase after this you – ” Cisco makes a face; the imprecise terminology evidently annoys him – “which would obviously be bad, so.”

“Ah. Yes. Good thinking,” Barry says awkwardly.

Cisco’s eyes slide sideways, probably trying to figure out if Barry means to sound as condescending as he indisputably does. He sighs after a moment, apparently deciding to give Barry the benefit of the doubt, and says, “Actually, you gave me the idea.”

“I did?”

“The passphrase you chose. _I have been and always will be your friend._ It’s from _The Wrath of Khan.”_

“I know,” Barry says. “We used to watch it a lot. At team movie nights.”

“We had team movie nights?”

“Oh yeah.”

Cisco looks briefly nonplussed. He shakes it off and says, “Well, you know that part where the _Enterprise_ looks up the _Reliant’s_ command prefix, and uses their own control systems to order the _Reliant_ to lower her shields?”

“Yeah, so?”

“Say what you want about _Star Trek_ , but that’s actually decent computer science,” Cisco says. Then he pauses. “Well. If you assume that the ships’ systems are configured to accept command inputs remotely, instead of being locked to their internal wiring only. Which seems like an oversight for military vessels, but maybe they were anticipating armada-based maneuvers and wanted to be able to slave the systems together – ”

“Uh-huh,” Barry says, amused in spite of himself, warmed by the brief flash of the Cisco he knows best.

Cisco shrugs. “Well, I don’t _know_ Gideon’s command prefix – neither does Gideon herself, technically – but she certainly knows how to order _herself_ around. And so…”

“She can order the other Gideon around, too?” Barry whistles. “Nice!”

“Well, not exactly,” Cisco says modestly. “But – Gideon is a _distributed_ system. An evolved form of what we used to call cloud computing, right? She has processing nodes and data storage nodes that are stored remotely, and new nodes can be brought up and down dynamically – ”

“I have distributed automated service discovery and configuration,” Gideon interjects primly. “Ordinarily I would only attach _available_ media to my central core. Cisco suggested that I expand my scans to include media networked to the _other_ Gideon. I was able to attach virtually all of her services to myself as well.”

“Dual-facing,” Cisco says. “So the other Gideon doesn’t notice until it’s too late.” His smile is smug and self-satisfied. “We’ll see how effective evil Gideon is when all of her processing power is tied up calculating digits of _pi_ and her memory has been filled with old episodes of _Star Trek._ ”

“The original series, of course,” Barry jokes.

“With the original special effects. None of that CGI bullshit CBS tried to spring on us,” Cisco agrees. His grin is pure mischief. “I’m a villain, not a monster.”

Barry’s chuckle trails off awkwardly.

Another memory wells back up. He and Eobard, in the sewers. _I forgive you._

_You’re in shock… I killed your mother for nothing._

Insisting: _Not for nothing. Killing my mother did change me._ _It changed me in ways that I will never recover from. The result is that I’m not a monster._

 _And I am,_ Eobard had said. _All I did was transfer the monstrosity from you to me._

Barry thinks _, Now we’re going to transfer it back._

Cisco’s grin fades, too. He studies Barry carefully. Then he holds up a hand.

“May I?”

Barry looks at the offered hand. He knows what Cisco’s asking. Offering.

It scares him. But Barry nods.

Cisco reaches out and carefully puts his hand on Barry’s shoulder.

Barry stiffens. Lightning jolts him. It feels like being struck by it all over again. It feels like Iris touching him in the time before. It feels like Eobard kissing him. It feels like every punch he’s ever taken from every metahuman he’s ever battled.

It lasts a second. It lasts an eternity.

Cisco pulls his hand away. He reaches up and pulls his visor up. For the first time since arriving in 2024, he looks at Barry with his natural eyes.

“Okay,” Cisco says. His voice sounds unaccountably hoarse. “I’m a believer.”

“You are?”

“Yeah.” Cisco reaches out again. Not for the vibe, this time. Just to clap Barry on the shoulder.

“Go back in time and fix it,” he says. He nods slowly. Fervently. “Fix it all.”

* * *

When Gideon dims the lights to signal midnight, everyone starts putting their tools down. Apparently even the end of the world doesn’t merit an all-nighter.

“Don’t be stupid,” Caitlin says when Eobard makes the mistake of saying something to that effect out loud. “None of us are in our twenties anymore. The loss of functioning that comes with depriving ourselves of rest is simply not worth the miniscule added productivity.”

“I can show you the data if you like,” Hartley says. “We proved it conclusively in 2021.”

“Technically I’m in my twenties,” Barry observes.

“Technically you’ve got the hardest part tomorrow,” Ronnie says. “You fail and we all go down. Get some rest, man.”

“Judging by how much you ate today, your physical reserves are low,” Caitlin adds, looking pointedly at the small tower of plates that are stacked next to the workstation Barry’s claimed as his.

Barry can’t even argue with that. Once Cisco had showed Barry how to use the Gallery’s food synthesizers – a piece of future tech that Cisco refuses to allow anyone to call a replicator, because they don’t accept “tea, earl grey, hot” as a valid input command – Barry had been eating more or less constantly. Eobard, too.

Barry hadn’t realized how much his exhaustion and emotional volatility had been part hunger until after he’d demolished his first steak. It _had_ been a whole lot of running since his last meal. He feels better now, though the distance between he and Eobard still roils, uneasy under Barry’s skin.

“We don’t really have guest rooms,” Hartley says. “But I can leave the force field down in the holding cell this time.”

“So it _is_ a cell,” Barry says.

No one rises to this particular conversation-starter. Everyone just wanders out. Barry notices, now that he’s paying attention, how tired everyone seems. Even Eobard, who passes up the opportunity to say something smart in favor of walking silently past Barry and down the hall back to the holding cell.

Barry follows somewhat more slowly. Eobard’s hiding it well, but Barry would guess that he’s still angry over Barry’s insistence on – well – committing murder. Barry weighs the merits of bringing the topic up again versus letting it all slide in the name of getting some sleep.

A pile of fabric hits Barry in the face as he comes around the corner to the cell. Barry catches it automatically, ready to throw it away in the same instant before he realizes it’s a t-shirt and sweatpants.

“Unless you want to sleep in your suit,” Eobard says by way of explanation. He’s tugging a T-shirt of his own over his head, his suit already a small yellow heap on the cot he’d previously claimed as his.

“Where did you even get these?” Barry asks, bemused.

“A matter compiler is a matter compiler, Barry. They don’t just make food.”

“Ah.” The not-replicators. All right then. Barry changes into the offered clothing, noticing with amusement that they have the old STAR Labs logo on them. “Couldn’t resist?”

“I just dialed up the default,” Eobard says shortly. “Gideon programmed these.”

“Wait.” Barry stares at Eobard. “ _This_ is how you were stocking the STAR Labs gift shop? You had a replicator?”

“The technical term is ‘matter compiler’,” Eobard says, “but yes.” At Barry’s nonplussed look, he sighs. “How _did_ you think I was getting enough calories, all those years of pretending I wasn’t a speedster?”

“Claiming to feed a whole lot of stray dogs?” Barry tries weakly. Eobard cracks a smile at that one, which makes Barry feel better. And – “Oh, this is where you got the black clothes, too, isn’t it? The, uh, robbery clothes.”

“Got it in one.” Eobard’s smile slips away. “I had to program Gideon with your measurements before she could make clothes for you. That’s why you had to wear one of my spare sets, that first time.”

“That’s all right,” Barry says carefully. He doesn’t know what about this conversation has suddenly disturbed Eobard, but he can sense the shift in the other man’s mood.

“You asked me if I’d ever murdered anyone in those clothes,” Eobard says. “If I’d said _yes_ , you wouldn’t have worn them, would you?” Eobard takes Barry’s suit from where it’s still dangling, forgotten, from Barry’s hands. He shakes it out and drapes it over one of the spare cots, then does the same with his own.

“And yet,” Eobard goes on, during one of the points of this domestic operation where his back is turned to Barry, “you’re contemplating committing a murder of your own.”

“If there were any other way, I’d take it,” Barry says. Wanting, _willing_ the other man to understand.

“I’ve killed a lot of people, Barry.” Eobard finishes laying out the suits. Straightens back up and turns to face Barry. “You’ve never killed anyone. I don’t think you know how rare that is, in my world. I don’t think you know how much that means.”

“Which ‘your world’ are we talking about?” Barry asks shrewdly. “The world of the ‘pampered academic’? The head professor of physics at Opal City U? The scientist? The historian?”

“The villain,” Eobard growls.

“That’s a world this other me created for you,” Barry says. “Don’t you see? The first wrong is mine. It’s always been mine. For you and for everyone else out there in Central City whose lives I’ve harmed. Everything that everyone else has done has all been because of what _I_ did first.” Barry flings his arms open wide, trying to encompass the magnitude of his guilt, and fails. “I have to fix that, Dr. Wells. I have to.”

Barry hears what he’s said a moment too late to catch himself. He knows the difference, he really does, but the others are still vague on it; they all keep calling Eobard _Dr. Wells_ , and Barry had fallen in with it. Just to keep the peace, just to avoid the argument, not because he really thinks –

“Is that what this is about?” Eobard asks. He sounds tired again. “An attempt to recapture a simpler time?”

“It’s about righting the wrongs I did,” Barry says. “It’s – it’s about undoing all the evil I’ve done.”

“And if, in doing so, you happen to get to go back to your idyllic childhood…” Eobard shrugs. “Well, you won’t say no.”

“I don’t get to go back,” Barry says. This much he _knows,_ like he knows his own heartbeat, like he knows Iris’ favorite kind of cake and the way Eobard’s whole face changes when he smiles at something genuinely good Barry’s done. “Maybe another me does. Maybe the nine-year-old left standing at the end of all this will get that happy past. Not me.” Barry dares to take a step closer to Eobard. Nearly cries in relief when Eobard looks up to meet his gaze. “The best I can hope for will be a happy future.”

“Don’t look at me to help you with that, Barry Allen,” Eobard says. “I don’t know what a happy future looks like anymore.”

“Me neither.” Barry takes another step closer. “But it’s like you said. We’re smart, stubborn, and fast.” One more step, and their knees knock together. “If we work together, I don’t think there’s anything we couldn’t accomplish.”

“And if we fail?” Eobard doesn’t look away, but Barry knows he wants to.

“Then that means this moment is all the chance at happiness I have,” Barry says fiercely. “And I’m damned if I’ll throw it away.”

There’s a suspended moment of stillness, not even a millisecond in length, stretched artificially by a speedster’s sense of time. Then Barry crashes into Eobard, or perhaps Eobard pulls Barry into to him, or perhaps both at the same time. Eobard’s hands are on Barry’s forearms, holding Barry to him, tight enough to bruise. Barry doesn’t resist. Presses closer. He wants those bruises. He wants everything he can have. Particularly those things that might last, even if just for a little while.

Barry knows he can’t actually climb inside Eobard’s skin through his mouth, but that doesn’t stop him from trying. As close together as they’re pressed now it doesn’t feel close _enough,_ not even when Barry moves forward and Eobard moves backwards and they’re both horizontal on a cot that’s barely wide enough for one of them. No amount of physical touch makes up for their self-imposed distance in the speed force.

The part of Barry that will always be a speedster is straining. Wanting to connect to the speed force. Wanting to seek out his reverse. _Needing_ it, even, with a force that’s shocking. Barry feeds that need into the press of his lips to Eobard’s skin, the frantic movement of his hands over Eobard’s body. Feels the same need given back to him in return. Eobard worries his teeth at Barry’s neck like he wants to imprint himself there. He bites. Barry wonders how much force it would take for the bite to linger. To scar, even through his healing factor. Wonders if he could make that happen through sheer force of will alone. A point of permanency in a rapidly shifting world.

They get their pants off this time. If this were a movie, or one of the erotic novels Caitlin unashamedly devours, Barry would lose his getting-fucked virginity right here and now. He wants to, badly. And even without the speed force connecting them, Barry knows that Eobard wants that too. But this is the real world. This is a too-narrow cot in a holding cell in a dystopian version of Barry’s future and Eobard’s past. They have none of the things they’d need to fuck without Barry getting hurt. Barry’s not that much of a masochist, and it seems that Eobard, who had once sworn that Barry would pay for his crimes, has entirely forgotten that promise in favor of getting his mouth on Barry in a reckoning of a very different kind.

 _This_ , Barry has had done for him before, twice from girlfriends and once in college after a movie marathon with a guy who Barry had had a crush on, but who had only wanted to suck Barry’s brains out through his dick and then leave without giving Barry his phone number. That had hurt much more than either of Barry’s two breakups. At least with the breakups Barry had felt like the relationship had had a chance; they’d both given it their best try, even if it hadn’t turned out to be good enough. The one-night-stand hadn’t been a try. It had just been a whimsy.

Barry doesn’t want this to be a whimsy. He won’t _let_ it. But that’s for tomorrow. For tonight Barry lets his hands curl in Eobard’s hair, loses himself to the feeling of Eobard’s hands on his thighs and Eobard’s tongue pressing, pressing, oh _God –_

Afterwards Eobard laughs and looks at Barry with such delight that Barry glows warm from the top of his head to the tips of his toes. Eobard spoons himself up next to Barry and rolls his hips languorously, declining all offers of assistance, perfectly content to kiss Barry right behind Barry’s ear and whisper filthy promises for what he’ll do to Barry when he’s got Barry in _his_ bed, with all the necessary supplies and all the time in the world before them, until Eobard’s hips stutter and he lets go with a full-body shiver that Barry echoes in sympathetic response.

It’s then that they realize that they’d never asked where the showers are. The laughter they share is almost better than the orgasm had been. Barry tugs his sweatpants back on to go ask, picking Hartley’s door because – well – if _anyone_ is going to understand, it would be him. Hartley takes one look at Barry’s messy hair and the definitely-still-visible (though fading rapidly) love bites on his neck before sending him three doors down and to his left, no, Allen, your _other_ left. Hartley laughs at him then, but it’s not unkind. And Barry gets to follow that laughter up with possessive kisses in the shower, and a warm body curled up next to his all night even though the cots really _are_ too small.

It may not be all of Barry’s childhood dreams come true. But it’s real, and it’s tangible, and it’s something Barry made himself. And Barry thinks, as he drifts off to sleep in Eobard’s octopus-like embrace, that maybe that’s better.


	10. Chapter 10

For all the time and effort spent generating the plan, Barry’s part of it is pretty simple.

The Rogues have the hard part. They’re the ones with plans and backup plans and counterplans, all designed to trick, trap and otherwise occupy evil Flash and his legion of subordinates. That legion ranges all the way from people Barry had put away as villains in his own timeline through the police through innocent civilians who will turn out to help their city’s ‘hero’ in what will seem to be his time of need. Minimizing the body count is a secondary goal, but even Barry has to admit in the end that it can’t be the primary one, or their plan will fail entirely. He has to console himself with the thought that they’ll all be getting a second chance once the timeline resets. And he has to resolutely lock away the shudder that reminds him exactly how dangerous that thinking is.

One way or another, by the time the sun rises over Central City tomorrow, Barry will have blood on his hands.

But Barry’s part of the plan is simple. He runs. He and Eobard have a route through the city planned, along with several backups and an emergency fallback. Time travel, like everything else, comes down to speed. And all Barry needs for speed is a connection to the speed force, Eobard, and enough road beneath his feet.

“The moment we turn these back on, we’ll be lit up like a beacon in the speed force,” Eobard predicts, fingering the connection device once again sitting snugly around his neck. Its mate is a weight on Barry’s shoulders, equal parts oppressive and comforting.

“We’ll keep evil Flash so turned around he won’t know _which_ way to run,” Cisco promises. “Just do your part and we’ll do ours.”

All around the Rogues’ Gallery, everyone is exchanging last pieces of advice and admonitions of caution. Cisco and Hartley swap something between them that Barry can’t quite see. Caitlin and Ronnie are openly kissing in the corner. Dr. Stein is writing something at one of the terminals. It occurs to Barry, for the first time, to wonder where his wife is. Deleted from existence? Out of Central City entirely, safe? Somewhere under the sway of Barry’s evil self? Barry hasn’t asked, before, and it’s too late now. He’s missed his chance. He can only hope that she, too, is benefited by what Barry’s about to do.

Cisco, Hartley, Caitlin and Ronnie all find excuses to take Eobard aside at one point or another, as they make their final preparations. Barry doesn’t have to listen in to know they’re asking for their old mentor’s blessing one final time. Eobard Thawne may not be real to them, but Dr. Harrison Wells had been their hero, their mentor, in some cases the only supportive adult in their lives.

Intellectually they must know they’re addressing a speedster from the future. Perhaps they’ve allowed themselves to forget. Or – given that none of them had ever know the ‘real’ Dr. Wells – given that that speedster _had_ been the one to offer them that help and support – maybe they’ve all just decided that Eobard is real enough for them.

Barry remembers the quiet stillness before another run. Remembers willfully setting aside his knowledge to draw what strength he could from that familiar personage, even knowing that it had all always been a lie. He doesn’t begrudge them whatever comfort they might find.

Farewells and well-wishes accomplished, the Rogues take up various positions. Some retreat to stations in the command chamber of the Gallery where they’ll be waging the scientific and electronic part of the battle. Others line up next to Barry and Eobard, ready to get out into the City and wreak a more distinctly physical kind of havoc. Ronnie and Dr. Stein merge in a burst of light.

“Everyone ready?” Barry asks.

“Ready,” Cisco says. The others nod agreement.

Eobard takes a deep breath. “Let’s see what this does.” He reaches up and thumbs the invisible toggle on the connection device. Barry does the same.

His presence hits Barry between one heartbeat and the next, slamming into him like the waves on the beach trips his family had taken in his childhood, before – _don’t think about that._ It’s not the same, anyway. Those waves had been trying to knock Barry off his feet. Tug him under. Lure him out to see and drown him. The speed force eddies around Barry eagerly, glad, so glad, to have him back. It’s missed him.

Eobard’s missed him. Barry knows _exactly_ how he feels.

Even at the speed of thought, there isn’t time for much more than the briefest mental caress. It’s still a thousand times more intimate than what their bodies had done earlier. Drinking it in greedily, Barry feels whole again for the first time since they’d left 2014.

But then a lance of emotion hits Barry. It’s not Eobard’s. It’s from elsewhere. Shock. Anger. Realization. Determination.

“Oh yeah,” Barry says aloud. “Evil me _definitely_ knows we just did that.”

“Then we’d better move!” Cisco shouts, beckoning to his team at the same time.

Eobard and Barry don’t bother with words or gestures. They share a single mental accord, and together, they _run_.

* * *

Linked again, and both breathing much more easily for it, Barry and Eobard can run effortlessly as fast as Eobard had ever been able to run in the time before his maiming. Gideon had done the calculations: they need two minutes and thirty-eight seconds to achieve what Cisco had dubbed, laughing, ‘escape velocity’. The speed necessary to break the space/time barrier and travel back in time twenty-four years. Two minutes and thirty-eight uninterrupted seconds, and the past is theirs.

Naturally, therefore, all of their plans to contain the evil Flash only succeed in occupying him for one minute and forty-four seconds.

Eobard notices the disturbances in the speed force first. Their connection has sharpened Barry’s senses, but it can’t give him the weight of practice and experience; he still doesn’t know what to do, entirely, with the entirety of what his connection to Eobard grants him. The added speed is its own challenge to manage. Barry remembers thinking, once, that it’s lucky that the speed force grants its users super-grace as well as super-speed. He knows now that that’s not quite correct. The grace is a function of skill. It’s possible to be a clumsy speedster. It just involves less tripping over chairs and more tripping over _bridges_.

Barry doesn’t have time to be clumsy. All of his focus is therefore on running. Eobard keeps the lookout, and alerts Barry the moment he catches the sense of another speedster searching them out.

 _He’s escaped Cisco and the others,_ Eobard says through their shared connection. _Coming our way._

 _Can he catch us?_ Barry asks. There’s no actual breathlessness in his ‘voice’, since he’s not using his lungs to speak, but the sense of it goes through anyway.

 _No._ Eobard’s stride lengthens impossibly further. Barry feels the extra speed flowing into his limbs, too. He doesn’t know how long either of them can keep this up. But if they can just stay ahead of the other speedster for another fifty-four seconds –

Something crackles past Barry’s ear. It’s golden-bright, just like Barry’s lightning.

 _Exactly_ like Barry’s lightning.

 _Tell me that it’s not possible to throw speed lightning,_ Barry says to Eobard.

 _Uh,_ Eobard says eloquently.

Another bolt crackles by them. They fall apart slightly to let it pass, then merge back into their two-man formation. The speed force apparently likes it when they remain close; something not unlike friction pulls on them when they get too far apart, connected as they are like this.

 _How is it catching up to us?_ Barry half-shrieks.

_Well, if you think about it, lightning is by definition moving at the speed of light –_

_Now is not the time to go all professorial on me!_

Another bolt, too close for comfort. Barry barely gets away from it in time. He still feels a jolt, though he knows it hasn’t touched him –

 _Ow_ , Eobard says tightly.

Barry, about to risk the glance sideways, has a better idea and dips into their connection farther. It pulls some of his concentration from running, but if he directs his focus properly, he can feel the lick of flame on Eobard’s calf, where the lightning had singed him. It’s throwing Eobard’s stride off. They slow slightly, but –

 _Not enough to let him catch us,_ Eobard confirms. The tightness remains in his voice, and Barry knows, now, that it’s pain. Wonders how many times that same tightness in Dr. Wells’ voice had likewise been from pain instead of exasperation. Puts the thought aside for later.

Another lightning bolt. This one catches Barry in the shoulder. He nearly stumbles. Eobard’s there in an instant, steadying Barry, keeping them both moving. But the sense of the enemy speedster is coming closer.

As the evil Flash comes closer, his aim improves. His next volley catches Eobard again. The one after that very nearly has them both. Another jolt of pain echoes through their connection. This one feels different. Not physical. It feels –

This time Barry _does_ risk the glance. He sees Eobard next to him, as he’d expected. Wreathed in scarlet flame. Pushing his hardest, though the lines carved deep around his mouth speak to the effort it’s costing him.

And behind his neck, the device that’s letting them share their connection sparks, visibly damaged.

_He’s aiming for them!_

_Yes,_ Eobard says. _I have often regretted your cleverness, Barry, but never so much as right now._

_He knows what they are?_

_He knows, at least, that they’re unusual. That’s enough, I suspect._

Another bolt of lightning. Barry and Eobard dodge; Barry left, Eobard right. Right into the _second_ bolt, hidden behind the first. That bolt catches Eobard squarely between the shoulder blades, and the lightning arcs, down his spine and up to the slim black device resting at the base of his neck.

It sputters and fails.

Barry is yanked out of the speed force with Eobard, both of them tumbling out of control down a major highway until a construction zone and a line of Jersey barriers breaks their momentum. There’s something hissing and popping in the back of Barry’s mind where Eobard is supposed to be. Their connection comes briefly back to full strength – Barry heaves in a frantic breath through lungs that feel squeezed between a vise – then, with a squealing shriek more felt than heard, it shorts out entirely.

Eobard pushes himself to his knees, heaving as desperately as Barry can feel himself doing, and tears the device from around his neck. “Shit, _shit –_ ”

“Is it broken?” Barry demands. Unwisely, he tries to make it all the way to his feet on his first go. He doesn’t even make it as far as his knees before he collapses again.

“Just shorted,” Eobard gasps. “I can fix it – ” His fingers scrabble at his belt, going for the multitools Barry knows he carries everywhere.

A bolt of crimson streaks past them. Barry strains to follow it in the speed force – his connection feels limp, like an overexerted muscle, but –

“He’s coming back.” Barry tries to stand again. Makes it to his feet this time, though he sways dangerously.

“Turn off your device,” Eobard says. “It’s hurting you without its other half – ”

Barry’s fingers don’t want to work properly; it takes him three tries to obey. When he does he gets a rush of energy back like the first breath of air after having been underwater too long. “How long to fix it?”

“Too long,” Eobard says grimly. He looks up briefly; his eyes meet Barry’s. They can both sense that the evil Flash is turning. Is coming back to them.

“I’ll distract my evil self,” Barry says. “You fix these, then come find me.”

Eobard doesn’t waste time arguing. Nor does he waste time on physical gestures of affection, though his fear is strong enough that Barry can feel its echoes through the speed force, even without their direct connection active.

“Be careful,” is all Eobard allows himself to say.

“I will,” Barry whispers.

Then he runs.

* * *

Barry’s briefly worried that the evil Flash will prioritize Eobard as a target over him. But the evil Flash shoots straight past Eobard’s position without slowing. Maybe he thinks Eobard is no longer a threat without the ability to share Barry’s connection. Laughable, but Barry can hardly throw stones, since he’d once – a lifetime ago – made a similar mistake.

Or maybe he thinks that Barry is the more proximate threat. That he can circle back and take out Eobard at his leisure, after Barry is disposed of.

That’s not quite laughable enough for Barry’s comfort.

They run. Flash and Flash, twin scarlet blurs pressing each other through the speed force. Without Eobard’s help, Barry isn’t significantly faster than his evil self. He does still have a slight edge – which speaks poorly of evil Flash’s training regimen, not that Barry is inclined to complain – but Barry’s speed advantage is more than negated by evil Flash’s advantages in knowledge of terrain and assistance from the CCPD. Barry is forced to evade a number of surprisingly sophisticated traps and fortifications that were clearly designed with enemy speedsters in mind. It slows him down. And when he slows down, the evil Flash has a chance to hit him.

The first few hits don’t mean much. The next few do. By the time the two of them stagger to a halt in the small park downtown that Barry had used to eat his lunch in, when he’d been a full-time student, Barry is winded and bleeding, his breath coming hard, the left side of his body shrieking protest at having been thrown too hard into a wall downtown mere seconds ago.

Barry’s hardly down and out, but a second or three of breathing room would improve his position dramatically. So he does what he does best.

He talks.

“Some welcome you’re giving me,” he shouts to his evil twin. “Here I thought you’d be glad I was here.”

“I doubt that,” his evil twin replies, “since I told you already that I planned to kill you.”

“Yeah. Still not clear on why.”

“You’re clear on it.” The evil Flash lunges; Barry dodges, and they reverse positions. “You’re just stalling for time. Expecting your friend in the yellow suit to show up and help you?” His laugh is horrible. “Don’t count on it. My men are already moving into position to take care of _him_.”

Barry instinctively reaches out through the speed force, through the empty place in Barry’s self that is now irrevocably Eobard’s. Nothing. Eobard’s connection must be completely out. Or else –

 _Don’t be an idiot,_ the voice of reason snaps in his mind. It still sounds like Eobard. _He’s trying to throw you off. Don’t let him. You know better than to think some second-rate mooks could take the Reverse Flash out._

Barry feints, more to distract his other self and keep the conversation going than anything else. His evil self takes the bait, and they exchange another few blows before falling apart again.

 _And –_ “If you could ‘take care’ of Eobard so easily, you’d’ve done it a long time ago,” Barry retorts aloud. The evil Flash hadn’t even been able to ‘take care’ of Eobard when Eobard had first arrived in 2024, fresh out of academia and brand new to using the speed force. Now? Hah.

“’Eobard’, is it?” evil Flash says. Something dark and stormy is coming into his voice, tightening the set of his jaw. “A little over-familiar, wouldn’t you say?”

“What do you care?”

Another lunge. Another flurry, Barry coming off better this time. The open park favors him. As does the chance to scope the terrain out. The longer they circle, the better Barry’s picture of the surrounding area becomes.

“I care about anything that might affect my Iris’ happiness,” the evil Flash says loftily. “It’s very important that my Iris have nothing but the best.”

“The best?” Barry can’t help it; he laughs, and the incredulity in it makes the evil Flash growl. “Hate to break it to you, pal, but you are _far_ from the best.”

“I give her everything!”

“Except what she actually _wants_!”

“She doesn’t know what she wants,” the evil Flash says stubbornly. “I do. I’m protecting her from herself, too.”

“Are you even listening to yourself?” Barry cries. “Iris made her choice. She chose Eddie. And that hurt, it did, but we have to accept that. It’s her choice to make!”

The other Flash’s mouth tightens. It’s the only part of his face Barry can really see, but he’s looked into his own face in the mirror enough times to know that the rest of the evil Flash has just closed off like the slamming of a door.

Barry doesn’t have to see the other Flash’s face to know what he looks like right now. He’s not in control of his emotions. They’re controlling _him._ His feelings of rejection, anger, betrayal, dismay, despair… the drive for revenge, to make someone else pay, to hurt someone else to salve his own wounds. Barry had felt that way, too, in the wake of Nora’s death.

Joe, always dutiful, had taken Barry to see child psychologists. Grief counselors. Support groups for orphans. At first Joe’s efforts had only made Barry angrier. What did Joe think this stuff was going to do for Barry? Nothing was going to bring Nora back. Nothing made Barry feel any better, except getting into fights on the playground and screaming at his foster family whenever they tried to get close.

But one day, after one of the support group meetings, another attendee – a girl even younger than Barry – had shied away when Barry had walked by her. Hurt and confused, Barry had turned to Joe for an explanation. Joe had visibly wavered before taking Barry into the nearby men’s room and telling him to look into the mirror.

Barry knows what expression his evil twin is wearing. It’s the expression Barry had seen looking back at him, twisting his ten-year-old face into something unrecognizably ugly.

 _I’ve seen a lot of criminals,_ Joe had said bluntly. _Most of the time I see them after they’ve committed their crimes, but sometimes we get lucky. Sometimes we catch them in the act. If you ever wonder what makes someone commit a crime, what makes someone lose enough of their humanity that they’re willing to hurt someone else to get what they want – just remember what you’re seeing in the mirror right now. Every criminal I’ve ever caught in the act? They’ve looked just like you do, right now._

Barry had tried to hit Joe then, furious, goaded, crying tears of rage over the insult to Barry and the implied insult to Henry, too. Joe had been prepared for that, of course. Had caught Barry around the waist, wrapped him into the tightest bear hug imaginable, and held him there until Barry had stopped fighting and his tears of rage had turned into tears of grief.

That had been the beginning. That had been the first step in overcoming his rage, and his pain, and learning that there were some things that just had to be borne.

No one’s ever done that for this Barry.

_Could it be that simple?_

The evil Flash is still glaring, angry, in pain. Barry takes a tentative step forward.

“I know it seems dark right now,” he starts, haltingly, searching for the right words. “But – ”

“Barry?”

Both speedsters turn. The park is deserted. _Had been_ deserted. Running towards them, surprisingly fast for a non-speedster in a dress and heels, comes Iris West.

Iris West- _Allen_.

“Barry!” she cries again.

“Iris, you shouldn’t be here,” the evil Flash says. “It’s not safe. Get to one of the shelters.” His gaze never leaves Barry’s. “I’ll protect you, my love.”

“Barry, is it really you?”

Barry breaks the evil Flash’s gaze. Turns to look at Iris. Who is looking right back at him.

She’s talking to _him_.

“It’s me,” Barry says.

Iris closes her eyes briefly. “Thank God.”

“Iris!” the evil Flash shouts, anger starting to shade into his tone. “I said, get to one of the shelters!”

Iris ignores him. “He killed my father, Barry.”

“I know,” Barry whispers.

“He killed Eddie.” Iris’ voice never wavers, but her eyes fill with tears.

The evil Flash growls. He vanishes in a blur, and when he reappears he’s holding Iris by both her upper arms, shaking her.

“I told you,” he shouts, voice shaking with distortion. “I told you never to say his name.”

Barry lunges forward now, unable to keep his cool. The evil Flash ducks away, pulling Iris with him. She snarls, trying to push him off of her. He smacks her absently.

Barry’s blood boils. “That’s not how you treat someone you love!” he shouts.

“She needs to learn a lesson,” the evil Flash says.

“The lesson is going to be all yours, asshole,” Iris says.

Iris’ arm swings around. She’s holding a knife – where had she gotten it? It doesn’t matter – she’s aiming at the evil Flash’s heart. And there is no way, absolutely no way, that she will ever be fast enough for the move.

No doubt that’s why she’d never tried it before. No doubt that’s why she’d gone along with the Flash’s charade. That and the assistance she could provide from her position at the evil Flash’s side. Cisco and the others had never said as much, not outright, just in case, but Gideon hadn’t been so circumspect. Barry knows that Iris has been helping them all. Secretly, quietly, in pieces so small that the evil Flash had never suspected. Small pieces that have added up to a number of victories, over the years. A much better rate of return than the gamble of moving directly against the Flash would be.

But now, inexplicably, Iris gambles.

And of course, she loses.

The evil Flash throws her off. Throws her away. Straight into the side of the First Bank of Central City, and its heavy, armored, reinforced walls.

Barry watches it. Not passively – he lunges towards Iris, trying to get to her before evil Flash throws her away, and then after her, trying to catch her. Trying to break her fall.

In this, as with so many other things, he fails.

The _crack_ , and the wet thud, of Iris’ body hitting that wall in excess of a hundred miles an hour is a sound that Barry will remember for the rest of his life.

He catches her before she hits the ground. For what little good that won’t do her.

“Iris,” Barry whispers. “Oh my god.”

Her eyes are still open. She’s still alive. Not for long.

“Why?” the evil Flash screams, appearing at her side. “You love me! You were supposed to love me! You were mine!”

“I _never_ loved you,” Iris says. Her voice is weak, and she has to pause to cough blood, but she gets the words out. “I loved Eddie. You never really had me, bastard. I was _never_ willing. _Never._ ”

Barry wants to tell her to save her strength. Knows, already, how useless that advice would be. From the outside, she looks normal, except for the blood – mere trickles – coming from her nose, her ears, the corner of her mouth. The bruises won’t appear on her skin until well into the post-mortem. But Barry can feel the wrongness of her body under his hands. The way bones that should support her instead cave in on themselves. The soft give of ruptured masses where intact organs should be. At Iris’ neck, the pulse that thumps under Barry’s fingers is uneven, _one-two-three…_ trailing off, and only thumping _four_ after a long drawn-out pause, an effort that shows in the way Iris pants for oxygen that isn’t being carried through her bloodstream, in the way her lips are already turning blue.

 _Hypoxia_ , Barry diagnoses distantly, drawing upon a detachment developed in another lifetime, when he’d just been a CSI. When Iris had just been his foster sister and part-time hopeless crush. Hopeless. God. It had been supposed to have been hopeless. It had never supposed to be – this.

“Iris,” Barry says helplessly. “I’m so sorry.”

“Knew it wouldn’t work,” she gasps. Iris’ voice is barely audible. Barry is reading her lips as much as he’s hearing her speak.

“Then why?”

“To show you.”

The evil Flash screams. He’d never learned to know his limits. Never learned that there were some things power could not attain. He’d used his speed to subjugate an entire city, sweeping away all opposition. He’d thought he’d gotten his dreams. He may have gotten fame, he may have gotten adulation, he may have gotten to put a ring on Iris’ finger. But he’d never gotten respect. He’d never gotten the genuine affection of friends or family. He’d never gotten Iris’ heart.

“I’ll fix it,” the evil Flash is saying. He’s speaking to Iris; Iris, beginning to convulse with the beginning of hypoxic shutdown, doesn’t hear. “I’ll go back in time again. I can fix this, too. I can!”

“Barry,” Iris whispers. “He’ll never stop. He can’t be fixed. Some things can’t be fixed.”

“Next time will be better. I’ll get rid of Eddie earlier. Joe, too, that bastard – he never liked me. You’ll love me next time, Iris. I _swear_ it.”

“You had to see,” Iris says, gasping for breath she can’t catch. “You wouldn’t believe… unless you saw. Now… you’ll do… what you have to do.”

Iris convulses again. She goes stiff in Barry’s arms. Then she’s gone.

Barry sets Iris’ body down. Gently. She deserves gentleness. Even now. Especially now.

“There are some things you can’t fix,” Barry says numbly.

“You just aren’t trying hard enough!” the evil Flash snarls.

“I try,” Barry says. He stands up, facing his nemesis with his eyes open. “I try every day. Letting something go isn’t easy. It’s the hardest thing there is. But you can’t walk backwards into the future. You have to let the past go.”

“Iris _is_ my future!” The madness is bright in his eyes. The only thing brighter is the lust. For power. For control.

_He’ll never stop._

_(Maybe it will all happen, just like I used to dream. Maybe we’ll fall in love in high school and go to prom together and get married right after college.)_

_He can’t be fixed._

_(Once I fix that, everything will be okay.)_

_You had to see._

_Oh, Iris._

Barry takes another breath. Lets it out, as time slows around them, as leaves hang suspended in midair and debris falls like gentle rain to the ground.

_So, then._

His nemesis moves.

And Barry –

* * *

Eobard is right. The second kill is easy.

In 2024, Eobard rejoins Barry just in time to see Barry letting the evil Flash’s body fall to the ground. Eobard doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t have to. The stricken look in his eyes speaks for him.

It’s not for the evil Flash. Nor is it for Iris, lying equally dead a few meters away. It’s for Barry.

Maybe that should worry Barry. Eobard Thawne is an obsessive bastard. Iris is lying dead from a speedster’s obsession. An entire city has been subjugated to that obsession.

Eobard had committed murder for his obsession. So has the evil Flash. And now – so has Barry.

Viewed properly, therefore, turning to Eobard and letting himself be briefly held is just – sensible. Barry already knows too much of what happens when a speedster is denied.

Viewed properly. Barry doesn’t care about viewing it properly. He just wants to be held.

He doesn’t know how he’s ever going to look Iris in the eye again.

The run back to the year 2000 is easy. Killing evil Flash – the second time, for Barry, though the first from Barry’s victim’s perspective – is easy. With their superior speed Barry and Eobard intercept evil Flash before he even gets to Barry’s childhood home. The entire complex snarled mess, cut off neatly at the root, though far too late for all the lives it’s ruined.

Eobard holds the evil Flash in place while Barry does the deed. Barry’s hand goes in like a knife through butter, smooth, all the way to the wrist. Eobard feels grim to Barry. Barry feels - he doesn't know what he feels.

There’s a moment of stillness, like the universe holding its breath.

Then the paradox sweeps everything away.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Another HUGE THANKS to maraceles, who patiently listened to me wail about all the ways I was stuck on this chapter, then asked me the real question and sent me off to go rewrite it completely.
> 
> TW: FLUFF. SO MUCH FLUFF. I think the ending of this chapter may be actual cotton candy. Your dental hygiene is not guaranteed.

Light sears Barry’s eyes. He blinks rapidly – rapidly as only a speedster can – forcing his pupils to adjust, his vision to focus.

There are images in his head. Memories. Some of them feel right. Others feel wrong. They’re not his. They’re his, but they’re not _his_.

 _I was dreaming_ , Barry thinks.

 _Are you scared?_ Eobard had asked Barry, right before – before –

_Yes._

_Me too._

Barry remembers something else. It starts with: _if you keep running – if you keep focused – you’ll find your way back to –_

“Barry?”

Barry’s eyes focus.

“Something wrong, man?” Cisco asks. “You were kind of zoning out there.”

Barry orients himself quickly. He’s in STAR Labs. The cortex. Cisco is only a few steps away from Barry, looking worried. To Barry’s left, sitting at one of the cortex terminals, Hartley sits, apparently wholly absorbed by whatever he’s doing.

“Fine,” Barry says carefully. He wonders if he’s lying.

“You did great out there today,” Cisco says earnestly.

“I – I did?”

“Yeah! Blackout was tough, but you guys were tougher.” Cisco breaks into a wide grin. “Also, I’ve been thinking. What’s the collective noun for a group of speedsters?”

“I don’t know,” Barry says, because it’s true, and therefore a safe answer.

“A flash!” When Barry doesn’t respond, Cisco’s smile falters. “You don’t like it?”

“I think we should pick something that doesn’t collide with one of the names already in use,” Caitlin says, coming in from the medbay. “Barry and Eobard both already have ‘flash’ in their name. It would get confusing.”

Cisco sighs. “Back to the drawing board,” he says mournfully.

“In the future, multiple speedsters are often referred to as a ‘pack’,” Gideon volunteers. “The etymology is disputed, but it is believed to refer to the similarity of group behavior to that of a pack of wolves when taking down prey.”

“I love it!” Ronnie crows, coming into the cortex behind Caitlin.

“No, no, Gideon can’t come up with something good!” Cisco wails. “ _I_ come up with the names around here!”

“How do you know you _won’t_ come up with it?” Hartley asks rhetorically. He pushes back from the computer, lounging in his chair. “Gideon did say the etymology was disputed.”

Cisco snaps his fingers. “Good point! I’ll just get Iris to adopt it and credit me…”

“Mention it to her at Friendsgiving tonight,” Hartley suggests. He glances over to Barry. “And speaking of Friendsgiving – Barry, weren’t you going to shower first?”

“Professor Thawne’s already down in the gym,” Caitlin adds.

“Of course, _he_ got slimed by that compost truck,” Ronnie observes. There’s a wave of good-natured laughter at this observation.

The memory bubbles up to Barry’s consciousness. His and not-his. Barry and Eobard, chasing Blackout. Splitting up in a simple hammer-and-anvil maneuver. Blackout blowing the lights for three intersections in every direction. A compost truck, trying to make too fast a stop, overturning and dumping its load right on top of Eobard. Who, distracted by Blackout, had failed to dodge in time and will consequently never live it down.

Involuntarily Barry smiles. From hated and feared nemesis, untouchable, impregnable, to a punch line straight out of _Back to the Future –_

Barry orients himself.

The paradox.

The new timeline.

_Oh._

Ronnie is still talking. He’s here, and safe. Not wandering the streets with Dr. Stein locked in his head, aflame and afraid. Hartley has gone back to fiddling with one of the cortex computers. No one turns a hair. Gideon, head visible atop the installed projection unit, offers a running commentary on the progress of some experiment Hartley evidently has underway.

And on the wall, nestled between two large dormant screens, is a beautifully framed portrait of Barry’s mother. Beneath it a plaque: _Nora Thomson Allen._ _Beloved wife and mother. Gone too soon._

He’d let her die. He’d had to. Some things couldn’t be fixed. Some griefs just had to be borne.

“What are you bringing tonight?” Cisco is asking the others. “I made brownies.”

Another memory comes to Barry. Friendsgiving. Friendsgiving is tonight. They’re all getting together at the West residence tonight, the night before Thanksgiving, to celebrate the family they’ve found.

“I made stuffing,” Ronnie says.

“Pie,” Hartley says.

Everyone looks at Barry.

“Uh,” he says.

“I didn’t make anything either,” Caitlin says comfortingly. “I’m going to claim one-to-a-couple privilege.” She grins up at Ronnie.

“Hey!” Cisco protests. “That’s not fair!”

Caitlin demonstrates her maturity by sticking her tongue out at Cisco. Then she asks Barry, “Did Eobard make something?”

“Uh – ” Barry says.

“Sweet potato casserole,” Eobard says serenely, coming in through the main door. He’s neatly dressed in slacks and a suit jacket over a plain white button-down. His hair is still visibly damp. His gaze goes immediately to Barry, and his forehead wrinkles in mild confusion. “I thought you were going to take a shower?”

“Uh,” Barry says for the third time.

“I left your clothes down there,” Eobard says.

“My clothes?” Well, it’s better than _uh_ , at least.

“For tonight.”

Hartley leans back to catch Eobard’s attention. “Before you go, can you take a quick look – ”

Eobard turns towards Hartley obligingly. The new angle lets Barry see it. Nestled discreetly beneath the collar of Eobard’s jacket, looking like an ordinary Bluetooth headset – the device that lets them share their connections.

 _Eobard,_ Barry murmurs to him, careful, testing.

It’s like a veil dropping from Barry’s eyes – like the moment when he’d blinked against the harsh lights of STAR Labs – like the moment when he’d oriented himself. Eobard reaches back out to Barry through the speed force, a dizzying blend of relief and eagerness and carefully hidden fear.

 _It’s me,_ Barry says. _Are you –_

 _Fine,_ Eobard says back. _Just a little dizzy – one minute I was with you in 2000, the next I was in a shower –_

_Sorry, sorry, I dropped you off kind of hastily –_

_You protected me from the paradox._ There’s a question there, carefully embedded, leaving Barry the option of pretending he hasn’t understood it.

 _I wasn’t going to lose you,_ Barry says fiercely, ignoring this offer entirely.

“They’re doing the thing again,” Cisco is groaning.

“You’re the only one bothered by it,” Hartley says.

“They’re having an entire conversation we can’t hear! That’s not creepy to you?”

“Not really,” Hartley says dismissively.

Cisco looks to Ronnie and Caitlin. They shrug.

“Anyway, thanks, Professor. I’d better get going.” Hartley stands up and grabs a jacket that had been draped over the back of his chair. “Caitlin, are you driving?”

“Yep,” Caitlin says, jingling a pair of keys with a STAR Labs keychain attached. “Ronnie already called shotgun.”

“Left side,” Hartley and Cisco say in unison.

“What about Barry and I?” Eobard asks mildly.

“Run,” Ronnie suggests, following a still-bickering Cisco and Hartley out.

“See you at the Wests’,” Caitlin chirps. She brings up the rear.

Barry waits an extra heartbeat, to be sure they’re really alone. Eobard drums his fingers on the console, but the feel of him is patient, too. He’s long since learned patience.

Finally: “Gideon?” Barry asks aloud. “How’s the timeline doing?”

“All analysis shows successful reintegration.” Gideon begins to populate several screens with data, sounding downright cheerful. “The paradox energy has dissipated completely, and the resulting timeline is stable.”

“And no one else knows?” Barry checks.

“No, Master Allen. Yourself, the Professor, and I are the only ones who retain any memories of alternative timelines.”

“You did it,” Eobard says, coming up to stand next to Barry in the center of the cortex.

“ _We_ did it,” Barry says firmly. He lets himself close his eyes for a moment. Lets himself, at last, relax.

They did it.

It’s over.

“I have these memories,” Eobard says slowly. “They’re – well, they’re mine. But they’re not _mine._ ”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Barry says. He can separate them out, if he thinks about it. Recall them as two distinct sets. He remembers his mother’s death, his father’s trial, coming to live with the Wests. He remembers ‘Dr. Wells’’ betrayal. He remembers traveling through time. He remembers seeing his alternate future self murder himself as a child. He remembers the alternate 2024.

He remembers killing his future self. The moment he’d _felt_ the other man die. Felt the jolt, running back up through his hand. Felt the way the energy had been absorbed into Barry’s body, there to remain, until Barry himself meets his end.

Barry can feel it. If he closes his eyes, he can feel it. His molecules spinning just that little bit faster. The life energy not his own, that he’d taken from another living being.

Eobard had been right. About that, as about so many other things, he’d been right.

But if Barry lets his mental gaze unfocus, a different set of memories come into view. The life he’d built in the moment of paradox, out of the building blocks of his former past. The life he’d chosen. The life he’d given to his younger self, who will never remember that the world had been any different.

“What happened?” Eobard asks.

_The universe opening around him. Everything freezing – no, not freezing – just moving very, very slowly –_

“It was – I could see it,” Barry says, fumbling for the words. He tries to share the memories with Eobard, but they won’t go. They’re too uniquely Barry to be given to another. He’s left with words, inadequate but available. “I could see everything. All the timelines beneath my feet, branching out into infinity.”

“Astonishing,” Eobard murmurs. Curiosity beams out of him: scientific, philosophical, personal…

“I could look at any of the roads and see where they led.” A dozen dozen timelines, grasped in the blink of an eye. All the choices that might be made. Not just by Barry, but by everyone in Central City, everyone in the United States, everyone in the _world_. The momentous and the irrelevant. Except that there had _been_ no truly irrelevant choices. In one lifetime, Barry had skipped getting coffee one morning, and the whole course of Central City had altered…

“I didn’t have time to see them all,” Barry sighs. Wistful, even now. In the moment itself the regret had been nearly overpowering. “Being a speedster was the only way I could see even a handful. You might have seen more, if you’d’ve been there. Maybe one day there would be someone fast enough to see them all. To pick the optimal timeline. I don’t know.”

“You picked the one that was best,” Eobard says confidently. “You – ” he stops talking, and Barry knows, from the sense of him, that he’s seen it.

The portrait hanging on the wall of STAR Labs.

_Nora Thomas Allen. Beloved wife and mother. Gone too soon._

“You didn’t save her,” Eobard says. Disbelief now, and dismay, and even, underneath it all, anger. _We went through all of this and you still didn’t save her – I thought you were going to put it all back –_

“I did,” Barry says aloud. “I did put it all back.”

Eobard’s gaze snaps to Barry, darkening. His eyebrows draw together. Barry can feel the gathering wave of anger through the speed force, the way Eobard is getting ready to say something that will hurt.

“I didn’t choose,” Barry says, cutting Eobard off. “I – how could I choose? That’s how the other me got into trouble. Thinking he knew best. Thinking that everything would be better if only he could _fix it_.” Barry’s a little angry himself, he realizes, as he spits the last two words out like they’re poison. “All the choices that were offered to me in that paradox – they weren’t just mine, Eobard! They were yours. Cisco’s. Caitlin’s. Iris’.” Barry shudders, entirely involuntarily. “Whatever I chose, whatever happily ever after I picked out, I wasn’t just picking it out for myself. I was making the decisions for everyone I’ve ever met, everyone I’ll _never_ meet, and saying, this is how your life’s going to be, because it’s the way _I_ think best.” Barry runs out of steam at the end, and lets his hands drop, only then realizing he’s been gesturing angrily. “I couldn’t do it.”

“So what did you do?” Eobard asks after a moment. His anger’s gone, too, at least temporarily. He just sounds… sad.

“I rewound,” Barry says simply. “Reset the timeline to the state it had been before it had ever been meddled with. And then left it to take its course.”

“Everyone got to make their own decisions.”

“Yes.” Barry sighs. “It was the only way.”

Eobard bobs his head, considering. “I… understand. I think.” Pauses. “I think…” He slides a tentative thought in Barry’s direction.

 _Oh God yes,_ Barry sighs, practically throwing himself into Eobard’s arms. Call him clingy; he thinks he could snuggle right up against Eobard and sleep for a month. _That hasn’t changed._ He sinks into the warmth of the embrace, grateful for another human touch. Grateful that it’s Eobard, who understands.

Eobard seems perfectly willing to hold Barry as tightly as Barry likes. He nudges Barry back a few steps, to one of the chairs by the cortex computers, and guides them both down into it. It’s a little small for two full-grown men, but they make do.

Barry would be quite content to not move or speak again for a solid half hour. Eobard’s still thinking, though. Eobard is like that, and Barry smiles in the crook of Eobard’s neck, amused.

“Your mother's still dead," Eobard says slowly. Over Barry’s shoulder, he’s still staring at the portrait of Nora Allen. “She didn't die the first time around.”

“She did," Barry says sadly.

“Barry, I was there – ”

“No, actually. You weren't. Not the first time." Barry sighs, pulling back a little so he and Eobard can have this conversation face-to-face. “In the paradox, I could see it – the first time around, Mom dies in her sleep. Heart failure. Dad came home late from helping another patient. Found her.”

“Oh my God,” Eobard says.

“Yeah, it wasn't – wasn't good. Dad didn't go to prison, it was pretty obviously death by natural causes, but he blamed himself. For not noticing her symptoms sooner. For not having been home when it happened... and a lot of people cast it up to him that doctor's wives never get a pill.”

“I thought your father was well respected!”

“People are never rational in the face of death.”

Eobard concedes this point with a shrug.

“This was the first thing evil me changed,” Barry says. “As soon as he figured out that he could time travel with his powers, he went back in time and saved mom. Called 911 before Mom even had the heart attack. Because he'd never learned that there are some things that can't be fixed.”

“Forgive me, Barry, but I don't see that saving the life of an innocent woman – ”

“By itself, if that's all it had been, maybe not. But evil me wasn't satisfied. Because when he came back to his present after saving Mom, he discovered that Iris was no longer dating him, in that new reality. That she was, in fact, dating Eddie Thawne.”

Understanding seeps through the speed force. “And he couldn't permit that.”

“Of course not." Barry sighs. “The first changes were subtle. Evil me wasn't up to murder quite yet. He went back in time a few years, transferred Eddie out of Central City before Eddie and Iris could meet. Presto, Iris is back to dating him again. They eventually get married. Problem solved, right?”

“Why do I have the feeling that it wasn't?”

“Because you still exist." Barry finds a gallows smile somewhere for Eobard. "Evil me walks in one day and finds Iris and Eddie making it on the couch."

“Barry," Eobard says blankly. "Are you saying that I'm the _love child_ of Iris West-Allen and Eddie Thawne?”

“The love great-great-great-grandchild. Yeah.”

Eobard is speechless. Barry lets himself enjoy that for a moment; it’s a rare occurrence.

Then Barry goes on, “At least in that universe. Eddie and Iris - I'm not prepared to say that there's some grand force in the universe pulling soulmates together, because that sounds over-the-top even to me, but – after catching them in the act, evil me went to further and further extremes to separate Iris and Eddie. Every time they came back together.”

“There are certain elements in the timeline that are… not precisely _fixed_ … but… heavily favored,” Eobard says slowly. “They are lynchpins, on which many things depend. I have seen before that the timeline has some limited capacity for self-repair. That if it gets too disturbed, it will seek to correct itself.”

“Who’d’ve thought Iris and Eddie getting together would be _that_ important?” Barry wonders.

Eobard shrugs, the movement abbreviated by Barry’s arm, which has found its way around Eobard’s neck at some point. “Not necessarily they, but something they do, or something they enable to be done… their descendants, even – ” he laughs. “Egotistical as that sounds.”

“The butterfly effect,” Barry muses. “Eddie and Iris get together, and humanity – oh – develops warp drive, say. They don’t, and we blow each other up in World War Three.”

“Or something,” Eobard agrees.

“Anyway…” Barry sighs. "Evil me kept going farther and farther trying to keep Iris and Eddie apart. Eventually he escalates to straight-up villainy. As near as I can tell, _that_ was the tipping point that finally let enough variables line up to create you. Not just Eobard Thawne, professor of chronodynamics. The Reverse Flash."

"Because that was the point at which he made a large enough impact on history to be remembered, a hundred and thirty years later," Eobard theorizes.

"Probably."

"And then I come back in time to meet him, and practically the first thing I do is undo all his good work." Eobard laughs, as if he can't help it; the sense of him in the speed force is not remotely amused. "I kill his – your – mother."

Barry nods. "Murder diverges from the original timeline, but not by as much as you'd think. Mom still dies, Dad still goes away, so I still get raised by Joe and form my crush on Iris... and Iris still meets Eddie. Right on original schedule."

"But then there's you," Eobard says. "You don't come out the same. Because it was murder instead of heart failure? Because you wanted to catch your mother's killer?"

"I don't think so," Barry says thoughtfully. "I think it was – you."

Eobard blinks. "Me?"

"You are not Harrison Wells. Harrison Wells, apparently, is something of a jerk. I got a peek in on the universes where he survives. He does not take anywhere near so strong an interest in my growth. Either as a speedster or as a human being." Barry gestures to Eobard. "You may have had ulterior motives, but – you helped me. You taught me. You motivated me to do good." Barry manages a smile with somewhat more warmth. "Believe it or not, that's the first time in any timeline anyone besides Joe tries to do that.”

"And Joe isn't enough?”

"If I'd never become a speedster - Joe would have been enough." Barry shrugs. "But once I could access the speed force, I just had too much power. It took another speedster - it took a villain - to keep me on the side of the heroes."

Eobard forces a chuckle. The sense of him in the speed force is churning, just on the edge of being too much for Barry to understand. "My service to the people of Central City," he gets out after a moment.

"Eobard." Barry dares to reach out, cup Eobard’s face in his hands, _make_ Eobard look at him. "You made me the hero I am today."

"So you left your mother dead in order to return the timeline to its original state," Eobard says, retreating into practicalities to cover his emotions.

"That's the one thing we were all denied," Barry says intently. "Even me. We were denied choice. The other me, the evil me, he made everyone's choices for them. Subordinated them all to his monomaniacal quest. And I can understand why." Barry's voice slows; unbidden, he remembers it again. Remembers the endless vista of opportunities. The paths spiraling outwards, ready for the taking, each of them promising the fulfillment of all of Barry's dreams.

"It was tempting," Barry whispers.

"Then why weren't you tempted?" Eobard whispers back, breath ghosting on Barry’s lips.

"There was something I wanted more than that."

"What?"

Barry laughs. "I wanted to be a hero."

Astonishment, again, from Eobard, drowning out the still-churning confusion. “Barry Allen.” He kisses Barry then. “I never _will_ see you coming.”

“Excuse me, Professor Thawne, Master Allen,” Gideon says. Barry is _not_ too proud to admit that he nearly jumps out of his skin. “Cisco asked me to remind you both at the necessary time to, ahem, _stop making out and shower or you really will be late._ ” Gideon made a noise approximating a throat clearing. “Message ends.”

Eobard drops his forehead against Barry’s shoulder and groans. Barry echoes the sentiment.

“Cisco,” Eobard says in tones of disgust that in no way match up to the warm amusement rolling off of him in the speed force. “ _Friendsgiving_. Ugh.”

“It’s a fun idea,” Barry says, though he’s rueful, wishing he could freeze the universe for just a few minutes more. “You even baked for it.”

“That,” Eobard says with dignity, “Was the _other_ me.”

Barry nods. That – that had been the tricky part of the paradox. The separation of the alternate Eobard and Barry, who would get to grow up without all the mess of memories that he and _his_ Eobard now have. Into whose shoes he and his Eobard have now gotten to step. Their other selves are coming up behind them, living their lives one day at a time, always and eternally one day behind the two speedsters standing in the cortex on the night of Friendsgiving.

Creating a way for them both to exist, without colliding or deletion – that _had_ been tricky. But the power of a paradox had been strong enough to manage it. The last gift of evil Barry to his other selves, made possible by his death, a way for him to receive redemption even after he’s gone.

“Sweet potato casserole, huh?” Barry says to Eobard, not even trying to stop the smile tugging at the corner of his lips, knowing that Eobard can feel the rest of it: grief, yes, and a quiet regret that he’ll carry for the rest of his life; but also safety, and comfort, and the joy of the family that Team Flash has made together.

“Shower, Barry,” Eobard says fondly. “Iris will be upset if we’re late.”

* * *

They make it to the West house only a few minutes late, and hastily fix each others’ hair on the stoop. Barry, despite everything, finds himself nervous.

_Iris,_ he can’t help thinking. _How can I face her? With what evil me did…_

 _She doesn’t remember,_ Eobard murmurs. _None of them do. It’s over, Barry. It can’t hurt them anymore._

“Barry!” Joe’s Dad-sense appears to be in fine working order; no one had rung the doorbell, but Joe pulls the door open on them both and smiles widely. “Come on in! Iris is just pouring wine, do you want some?”

“I, uh,” Barry says. He finds himself herded inside, the door firmly closed behind him and a hug bestowed by a man who has no idea what his foster son has done. “I can’t. Remember? Speedster?”

“Barry, the point of wine is the taste, not the alcohol,” Joe scolds. “Come on. Red or white?”

“Uh,” Barry repeats.

“White for us both,” Eobard says to Joe.

“Be right back,” Joe says.

Barry’s gaze cuts to Eobard. _I don’t even_ like _wine._

 _It will make Joe happy for you to hold a glass,_ Eobard says calmly. _Something you taught me, Barry – making someone happy can be an end unto itself._

And Joe _does_ seem happy, when he brings Barry a wine glass and Barry accepts it. Tentatively Barry takes a sip. Joe beams.

“You’re the last to arrive,” he says cheerfully. “Now we can all eat. Ho!” He turns towards the rest of the house, raising his voice. “Turkey time!”

They assemble around the table, eleven of them in total. Joe and Iris and Eddie, Cisco and Hartley and Caitlin and Ronnie, Dr. Stein and Clarissa Stein. Eobard. Barry. There’s two leaves in the table Barry has seen before and a third leaf he hadn’t even known this table had. Judging by the way it’s several shades darker than the other leaves, and a little sticky to the touch besides, Barry isn’t surprised.

“Joe made me help haul it up from the basement,” Eddie says ruefully when he sees Barry’s surprise. “It was _covered_ in spiderwebs.”

“Serves you right for getting here early,” Joe says without a trace of regret.

“He made me clean it.” Eddie shudders. “I _hate_ spiders.”

“No good deed goes unpunished.” Joe grins. Everyone laughs.

Barry looks around. The table is wide and groaning with everything that’s been put on it. The people sitting around it are smiling. Everyone looks relaxed. Everyone looks – happy.

Joe doesn’t bother to sit. “All right, everyone. I know you’re all eager to try my turkey – ” someone’s stomach growls, as if on cue – “but a toast is traditional, and you’re all gonna have to put up with me.”

“Here we go,” Iris sighs ostentatiously. Barry’s avoided looking at her, but she grins across the table at Barry, inviting him to share the joke of their foster siblinghood. Barry, helplessly, grins back, forgetting to be afraid or guilty or anything else in the sheer relief of seeing her smile.

 _It’s over,_ Barry thinks, a warm feeling starting to spread through him. _It can’t hurt any of us anymore._

“Traditionally – ” Joe stresses the word, with a mock-glare at Iris and Barry, “On Thanksgiving, you talk about what you’re grateful for. This year, that’s harder than usual.”

Barry sucks in a hard breath.

Heads nod around the table. Ronnie reaches an arm around Caitlin’s shoulders and gives her a hug. Clarissa and Martin Stein look at each other. Under the table, Eobard’s hand finds its way into Barry’s.

“This last year’s brought a lot of changes,” Joe says. “Some good, some bad – although even the bad ones led to something good in the end.” He looks to Iris and Eddie, holding hands on top of the table. The band of gold around Iris’ finger glints in the light. “I lost my old partner in the line of duty. But I gained a new one who’s as good as any one can ask – who may yet manage to turn into an adequate son-in-law one day.”

Everyone laughs, even Eddie. Barry, who is used to a much more hostile Joe on the subject of his daughter’s romantic life, relaxes enough to join in the chuckles before his silence becomes suspicious.

“Then the particle accelerator exploded, and Barry was in that coma…” Joe’s attention has switched to Barry now, and Barry has to fight to remain steady under it. “I thought that was it. That we were going to lose him.” He shakes his head, visibly misty-eyed. “But then along comes Dr. Wells – well, that’s all I knew at the time!” he protests, interrupting himself when everyone else around the table breaks into good-natured jeers.

“Deadnaming,” Cisco sing-songs.

“No shame at the table,” Caitlin counters.

“All right, all right,” Joe laughs. “Then along comes Professor Thawne. And I thought I was just about losing my mind – here’s Barry, his heart stopping every five minutes, and here’s the man who’d built the particle accelerator, and he tells me he’s a speedster from the future and the only one who can save my foster son!”

Barry’s eyebrows fly up, and he only just gets them under control. Eobard, at Barry’s side, stiffens.

Everyone around the table, though – they’re laughing. Sympathetically. And Joe shakes his head at himself. “I was about ready to check myself into Arkham,” he says frankly. “But then you guys – ” He gestures now to the rest of the table; Caitlin, Cisco, Ronnie, Hartley and even Dr. Stein. “You guys swore it was all true. And I, well.” Joe puts his glass down for a moment. He looks down at the table and just breathes for a second. When he looks back up, his eyes are misty again.

“I’d be lying if I said I believed you even then. But it wasn’t likely that you were all crazy together. So either it was a prank, and you were harmless – in which case I had nothing to lose – or it was true, and you could help Barry.

“I could never have predicted what my decision would lead to,” Joe goes on. “I certainly didn’t know what I was agreeing to when I said _yes_. But I’ve come to learn that sometimes, that’s just the way of things. We make the best decision we can with the information we have, and then we make the best of the results. And I got lucky.” There’s another round of nods. Hartley even pounds the table lightly, a relic from his college debate days.

Barry has to close his eyes for a second, because – with the exception of Eobard – everyone will take it the wrong way if Barry starts crying right now.

When he opens his eyes again, Joe’s looking at him. Smiling, though it’s watery.

Joe says, “I hope you don’t regret that I said yes, Barry. Because I sure as hell don’t.”

“Hear here,” Hartley cries, pounding again. Eddie emulates him, laughing.

Underneath the table, Eobard is gripping Barry’s hand, tight enough that Barry’s fingers tingle.

“I don’t,” Barry manages to say. He grips back. Holding on for dear life. New memories are peeking through the old ones, growing up side-by-side with the events Barry recalls from his first timeline. Now he remembers waking up in STAR Labs surrounded by his friends and family. Remembers Eobard among them, taking the lead. Explaining Barry’s accident. Telling him he’d gained superspeed.

Telling Barry everything, right from the start. His real name. His real birth year. The circumstances that had led to him adopting the alias of Dr. Harrison Wells. Promising to help Barry every step of the way.

Everyone else promising the same. Even Eddie, Joe and Iris. Even Hartley. Even Ronnie and Dr. Stein, who had never been thought dead.

“And even though it’s forced me into the premature realization that both of my kids are having sex – ” Joe pauses to make a face, and the table erupts in laughter again, this kind much less emotionally fraught. Iris blushes charmingly. Eobard is stiff again with shock, and Barry rewinds what Joe had just said – _both his kids? –_ in time for Joe to say to Eobard, _sotto voce_ , “ – which reminds me, you’d better follow your great grandpa’s lead and put a ring on it – ” and Barry has to drop his head into his hands, the better to hide his acute embarrassment.

Except Eobard doesn’t let Barry’s hand go. Which means the whole table gets to see that they’d been holding hands underneath the table, which earns them another round of laughter.

Good-natured laughter. Inclusive laughter.

None of them, sitting around this table on the night before Thanksgiving, in the West family home where Barry had grown up, are the least bit afraid. Of either of the speedsters in their midst.

“ – I can’t say, in the end, that I’m sorry for what the year has brought.” Joe picks his wine-glass back up, and raises it in a toast.

“To friends,” Joe says. “To family. To friends who become family, and family who remain friends. To a crazy 2014, and, hopefully, a 2015 with fewer twists and turns.” Another round of chuckles greets this, rueful but edged with hope.

“Cheers,” Joe says.

“Cheers!” the rest of the table choruses.

There’s a few moments of chaos where everyone leans around to clink glasses with everyone else. With eleven at table, that’s quite an undertaking, and several people get out of their seats to walk around the table and exchange hugs. Everyone drinks their wine. Everyone smiles.

Under cover of it all, Barry dares to lift the hand that Eobard’s still holding and kiss it, surrounded by everyone who loves them both.

Eobard watches Barry do it. He shakes his head once, like he can’t believe his senses. Then he leans over and kisses Barry in truth, with white wine on both of their lips, and the eternal wariness in the sense of him in the speed force begins to be overtaken by hope.

Joe, of course, shatters the moment. “Whoa, whoa, I’m not ready for that!” he shouts from the head of the table. “I need some kind of warning!”

“Dad, shut up,” Iris recommends laughingly, and turns to kiss Eddie as well.

* * *

Joe’s speech proves to be the only time harder topics are touched upon. The remainder of the evening is taken up with only the good stories of times gone by. Everyone takes it in turn to recall some happy former memory. Even Dr. Stein, perhaps cowed by the presence of his wife at his side, shares a story about the semester Hartley and Cisco were in his undergraduate quantum physics class that manages to be neither condescending nor abrasive. Clarissa Stein smiles at him approvingly, and the story she tells of Martin as a young postdoc at a faculty dance is positively sweet. Barry sees Caitlin squinting at Dr. Stein, trying to reconcile the crabby old man she’s used to with the charmingly smooth student who’d won Clarissa’s heart. Ronnie, at Caitlin’s side, doesn’t seem anywhere near so surprised. Barry guesses Ronnie already knows about Dr. Stein’s softer side.

Dinner is followed by party games, which is followed in turn by dessert. The TV is tuned to whatever sporting event comes on the Wednesday before Thanksgiving. Cider is passed around. More stories are shared. Jokes are told. Joe drags out the baby pictures, a form of torture to which Barry has long since become inured.

The night gets late. People start making their excuses. Barry feels the nudge from Eobard and responds affirmatively: they should step out, too, if they can. Find a moment and a place where they can be alone and… talk.

With that in mind, Barry carries a load of dishes into the kitchen, where Joe is already playing dishwasher Tetris, and says, “I’m going to go out for a bit.”

“Oh yeah?” Joe raises an eyebrow, straightening up from his attempt to wedge a salad plate in between two pot lids. “Where to?”

“I, uh,” Barry says. He finds himself looking anywhere but Joe and curses himself, knowing how this is going to sound but unable to think of a way out of the situation. “I think I left some tests running at STAR Labs. I was just, uh, going to check on them.”

“Uh _huh_ ,” Joe says, entirely undeceived. “Barry, come on, give this old man some credit. If you want to go off to have sex with your boyfriend, just say so.”

Barry feels his face erupt into flame. “I – ”

“Thanks for a lovely evening, Mr. West,” Eobard says, sticking his head into the kitchen. “I appreciate the invitation, but I’m afraid I need to head out now.”

“Going back to STAR Labs?” Joe asks archly.

Eobard’s expression and voice take on notes of wariness. “I left a few tests running, so…”

Joe laughs. “Man, you two _are_ a pair. Matching excuses and everything.”

Eobard, if anything, only becomes warier. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“Of course not.” Joe gets himself under control. “Well, you boys have fun.” He claps Barry on the shoulder and points a finger at Eobard. “Remember what I said about that ring.” He turns back to the dishwasher, still chuckling to himself.

Barry seizes the moment and escapes, grabbing his jacket from the coat-hook by the door and slinging it on while wishing the floor would open and swallow him up.

Eobard’s footsteps are easily distinguishable approaching the door over the desultory chatter of the small knot of people still clustered around the TV watching the end of the game. “What was that about?”

“Joe thinks we’re going back to STAR Labs together,” Barry says. The _to have sex_ part, he thinks, is implied.

That’s confirmed when Eobard says, “Ah.”

“So shall we?” Barry finishes pulling on his jacket. “Since I’ve got a hall pass for tonight, apparently.”

“Curfew’s at midnight!” Joe calls from the kitchen.

“It is not!” Barry yells back.

“This? Right here? Is why I moved in with Eddie,” Iris says, on her way back into the dining room to pick up another load of dishes.

“Though somehow we’re still stuck on cleanup duty,” Eddie sighs at her heels. He gives Barry and Eobard a rueful look. “Escape while you can.”

Eobard continues to be visibly flat-footed, so Barry takes it upon himself to say, “Good idea.” He tugs Eobard out the door before anyone else can traumatize him further.

They run, of course. But their pace is leisurely by the standards of speedsters. Neither of them are wearing speed-safe clothing, for one thing. For another, Barry wants to enjoy this moment. The familiar lights and sounds of Central City 2014. The bracing feel of the wind in his face. The comforting sound of Eobard’s footfalls, perfectly in sync with Barry’s own.

They don’t go to STAR Labs. They go back to Eobard’s house, because Barry is hoping that Joe had absolutely right about their plans.

“Good evening, Professor Thawne, Master Allen,” Gideon greets them as they arrive.

“Good evening, Gideon,” Eobard says out of what has to be pure reflex.

The house has changed. There’s no wheelchair, of course, nor any of the other trappings of physical disability – in this timeline Eobard had never pretended to have been injured in the particle accelerator explosion, had never pretended to be other than he is. But the changes are deeper than that. The few times Barry had been in Eobard’s house before, it had been just that: a house. Impersonal. A showpiece, not a place where someone lived. Now – now it feels like a home.

The basic bones are the same. There’s lots of glass everywhere, and chrome, and technology. Ultramodern. Hard edges, just like before. But now there are soft touches, too. Pillows on leather couches and throws jumbled on ottomans as if kicked off by lounging feet. A stack of books on an end table. A discarded bowl with congealed dairy on the kitchen counter. Pictures. There are pictures on the walls, and they’re not all landscapes.

There’s the picture of the whole STAR Labs team, in pride of place. Not just the snapshot of Barry, ‘Dr. Wells’, Caitlin, and Cisco. This is the full team. Eobard is standing center with Barry, arms around each others’ waists, and grouped around them is the full team. The same eleven who had sat down for dinner. Smiling, and there aren’t any shadows in their eyes, this time.

Next to it – another picture. Barry Allen, aged ten, hugging his father goodbye.

“He had to leave,” Barry says slowly, the memories curling up again.

“Why?” Eobard comes up to stand next to Barry, looking at the picture as if he’s never seen it before. Which is nothing more than the truth, though the second set of memories in both of their heads would disagree.

“He blamed himself for mom’s death.” Barry sighs. “He – apparently PTSD isn’t just something you get on the battlefield. Coming home to find your wife is dead, trying and failing to save her – that can cause it, too.”

“I am not surprised,” Eobard says gently.

“Dad tried to tough it out, but he was a doctor, he couldn’t lie to himself for long… after the third time in a year he had to check himself in to Arkham House, well, it was clear to everyone he needed more help than he was getting.”

“He went away for a while,” Eobard says, slowly now. He’s getting the memories at the same rate Barry is, drifting through the speed force connection they’ll always share. “And even after…”

“He couldn’t bear to come back to Central City.” Barry sniffles, feeling the familiar gentle burn behind his eyes. “He got a teaching position at Midway Med. Asked me if I wanted to come with, but... I was happy here. I had Joe, and Iris. And the psychiatrist Joe had me seeing recommended against making the move if I wasn’t 100% sure I wanted to do it.”

“So you were raised by Joe West after all.”

“Chalk another one up on the list of universal constants, I guess.” On the list of things that can’t be fixed.

“I’m sorry,” Eobard murmurs.

“It’s okay,” Barry says. He’s crying, he knows, but he’s also certain. “I – even the first time, when I went back to try and save Mom, I didn’t have entirely unmixed feelings. I wanted Mom and Dad back, but I didn’t want to lose Joe, or Iris, or any of the other things I had gained when I lost them. This way, at least I can have Dad back in my life.”

“There’s a difference between having your father several hundred miles away and having him here at home with you.”

“Yeah,” Barry agrees. “There is. But I can call him any time I want. I can pick up my phone and talk to him. Any time I want. Or I can video call him. I can see his face. If I buy plane tickets? I can visit him.”

“Airfare is expensive,” Eobard says carefully.

“Fortunately I happen to know a billionaire,” Barry says, without a trace of shame.

Eobard’s smile becomes a trifle warmer. “Ah.”

“This _is_ better,” Barry says. He lets the truth of it echo between them. “This is – this is a miracle.”

“I feel like that’s my line,” Eobard says, honest in his turn. “Barry… have you remembered yet…” He takes a deep breath. “The other memories I have, about myself. They’re not just different, Barry. They’re – ” Eobard shakes his head. “I don’t deserve them.”

“What are you talking about?” Barry says, baffled.

“These new memories – they say that I never visited 2024. They say I came right back to the year 2000, when I first time traveled back to try to meet the Flash.”

“Oh,” Barry says, recalling it now, taking the memories from Eobard’s mind as Eobard had taken them from Barry’s. “And you landed in the middle of the road – ”

“Right in the path of an oncoming car.”

“Dr. Wells swerved to try to miss you. But he rolled the car, and he and Tess Morgan were both killed.” Barry takes a deep breath. “Their deaths – their deaths were an accident.”

Barry can see it now, through Eobard’s eyes. Through the eyes of the Eobard who is coming up behind them. The wet road. The headlights of the oncoming car. Disoriented from the time-jump, not understanding what’s happening until it’s too late as the headlights swerve and the car rolls and there’s a terrible noise –

Running to the wreckage. Pulling the doors open, pulling the people out. Both of them injured beyond help.

“And it’s not just that,” Eobard goes on, looking more and more distressed by the moment. “In these memories, I – I try to save them. And I recognize Harrison Wells from my research, I know he’s the man who built the particle accelerator. I know that, now that he’s dead, I’ve changed history. I take his place – I stay in this time – not because I’m trapped, not because I’m trying to get revenge on you, but because I want to fix the damage I’ve caused!”

“What’s wrong with _that_?”

“It’s not _true_ ,” Eobard says. “Barry, I’m – I’m a very, very bad man. This new person the timeline says I am – it’s all a lie.”

“No,” Barry says intently. “You said it yourself; when you first came back in time, you were a pampered academic trying to meet your hero. You weren’t a murderer. Evil me _made_ you a murderer. If you never meet evil me, you never have to become that person.”

“That may be all well and good for that earlier me,” Eobard says, quiet now. “But for this me, it’s a pardon I’ve done nothing to deserve.”

“Tell me you don’t regret killing Harrison Wells,” Barry dares. “Tell me you don’t regret killing Tess Morgan, or my mother.”

“My regret doesn’t bring them back. Erasing their blood from my hands doesn’t absolve me. It just betrays the dead.”

“It may not absolve _you_ ,” Barry concedes. “And maybe _you_ will spend the rest of your life trying to atone for their deaths. But the Eobard Thawne who is coming up behind you never has to be a murderer. He gets to go back to being that innocent professor.” Barry nods to himself, working it out. “In the original timeline you never became the Reverse Flash – but you _have_ to be the Reverse Flash, or else I couldn’t have seized the paradox, and we’d be right back where we started. So this is the timeline correcting itself. You come into being, and come back to this time, and meet me. Under better circumstances.”

“I don’t deserve it,” Eobard says again.

“So _become_ deserving of it,” Barry challenges. “You’ve got the rest of your life.”

“I’m a villain,” Eobard points out, as if Barry could somehow have forgotten.

“So am I,” Barry says. Knowing it to be true, even as Eobard shakes his head in frustrated denial.

The seeds of the evil Flash _are_ within Barry. Dormant, thank God, and Barry will spend the rest of his life making sure they stay that way. But if it’s actions, not choice, that differentiate good people from bad –

“Whatever kind of villain you are, it’s the kind you learned to be from me.” Barry steps closer again. Close enough that they could embrace. Close enough, that when Barry tilts his head down slightly and Eobard tips his chin up, that they could kiss. “Well, I’m still here. Still teaching. Don’t you think you could keep on learning?”

“And then what?” Eobard tries to smirk. He doesn’t quite succeed. “We live happily ever after?” Deliberately he steps back. Turns away. Leans over the counter in the kitchen, arms braced heavily against it. “This isn’t a fairy tale, Barry.”

A piece of trivia Iris had shared with Barry once floats through Barry’s head. In spite of himself he has to smile at the thought of Iris. He’d remembered this factoid because of the hopes it had once raised in him of his future and Iris’ together. Perhaps it’s fitting that he uses it now. Perhaps it’s fitting, in a way, that having grown up as siblings, they’ve come to love two members of the same family.

Maybe they’ll even end up sharing a last name after all, if Joe has his way.

“The fairy tales we got _happily ever after_ from were the Grimm tales, and they were originally written in German,” Barry offers. “The translation isn’t exact. The original stories don’t say _happily ever after_. They say, _und wenn sie nicht gestorben sind, dann leben sie noch heute._ ”

“I don’t speak German,” Eobard says after a moment. “And I never studied fairy tales, either.”

“More accurately translated, it means, _and if they haven’t died, they are still alive today.”_ Barry dares to smile. To come up behind Eobard and slide his arms around Eobard’s waist. Settle his chin on Eobard’s shoulder, taking advantage of that slouch that Eobard deplores. “Sounds like a lower bar to clear to me. What do you say?”

Eobard trembles briefly. For a moment Barry thinks he’s angry, or upset. Then he realizes Eobard’s laughing.

“You’re not going to give up, are you?” he asks. He twists slightly, just enough so that he can meet Barry’s eyes.

Barry gives in to the temptation to steal a kiss. A brief one only. But never let it be said that Barry is above a little sly persuasion. “Nope. I’m too stubborn for that.”

“The great and mighty Flash,” Eobard murmurs. “How can I say no to you?”

“You haven’t shown much aptitude for that before,” Barry has to agree.

The blood of Barry’s future self is still on Barry’s hands twice over, even if that man had now never existed. As Harrison Wells’ and Tess Morgan’s blood is still on Eobard’s, even if the timeline has altered to count those deaths accidental. As Nora’s blood is still there. But the younger versions of Barry and Eobard, the ones who are coming up behind them, who exist because of those sacrifices – they never have to kill. Their molecules can keep on spinning naturally, just the way they’d been born.

Someone had given Barry that gift once. Eobard Thawne had given Barry that gift. Barry regrets that he couldn’t keep it; he knows, now, how much Eobard had valued it. But he doesn’t regret having been able to pass it down.

“Then I suppose I have no choice.” Eobard sighs. “It won’t be easy,” he adds with a flash of self-recrimination. “I’ve done a lot of things.”

“Me too.” Barry shrugs as best he can without letting Eobard go. “But there’s certainly no going back. Not with the Swiss cheese we made out of the timeline. So let’s go forward. Find out what comes next.”

“You’re like a walking heroic cliché,” Eobard grumbles. “What next, you’ll tell me to listen to my inner light? That I’m not all bad, and I can mend if I try?”

“You told me something like that once.” At Eobard’s snort of disbelief, Barry has to grin. But – “No, really! It was the last thing you said to me. 2015 you. Before I came back here and made the regrettable life decisions that led me to take up with you-you.”

“What did I tell you?” In spite of himself, probably, Eobard sounds… wistful.

Barry kisses Eobard again. He really can’t help it. “You said that… that it would get darker before it got lighter. But that if I kept running, if I stayed focused, I’d find my way back to the light.”

“Ugh,” Eobard says. He kisses Barry back, though, which speaks considerably louder than words.

“Cliché’d in retrospect,” Barry has to agree. “But it meant a lot to me at the time. And at several times since.”

“I suppose…” Eobard muses. “I suppose it can’t hurt to… try.”

Eobard turns the rest of the way around in Barry’s arms, freeing himself temporarily to hoist himself up on the counter before pulling Barry back to him. With the added boost they’re more of a height. Barry slides comfortably between Eobard’s slightly spread legs and is rewarded with a thoroughly villainous kiss.

Eobard captures Barry’s hand when they pull apart again. Barry’s _left_ hand, he realizes suddenly. All of Joe’s jokes over dinner rush back into Barry’s head at once, and Barry turns bright red.

Eobard sees it and laughs. “Put a ring on it, huh?”

There’s only one way to react to that, really. Only one way they can stand right now, with whatever there is between them still so new and fragile.

“You’re wearing the dress,” Barry says firmly.

Eobard shudders, mock-horrified. “There are plenty of ways to have a wedding where no one wears a dress.”

“Maybe in the future there are.”

“Well, we’ll start the trend early.”

“Eobard Thawne, are you proposing to me?” Barry flutters his eyelashes outrageously. “What happened to ‘it will never work, I’m too steeped in sin, we’d better not try’?”

The mockery slides off Eobard’s face. Eobard looks at Barry, far too seriously for the lighthearted moment Barry had been trying for, and the sense of him through the speed force is terrified and exhilarated and determined all at once.

“My hero told me otherwise,” Eobard says, and pulls his reverse back in for another kiss.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fin!
> 
> For the interested, there will almost certainly be a porny timestamp to this fic. Barry's getting-fucked virginity ain't gonna lose itself, you know.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who read and commented and said the most amazing things. It's been wonderful getting to know you all! If you would, leave me one more comment and let me know how you liked the ending!

**Author's Note:**

> Shout-out to [maracles](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Maraceles/) and [spaceoperetta](http://spaceoperetta.tumblr.com/) for being incredibly welcoming when I stumbled into this fandom! And the world's biggest hug to [coco](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Themadwomanwhoisunfortunatelylackingabox/), who watched me climb into this dumpster and said "move over, there's room for us both if we squeeze". This wouldn't exist without you guys :) Thank you all so much!


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